


Inversion

by thewickedloki



Series: Inversionverse [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewickedloki/pseuds/thewickedloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Loki's plan had been discovered earlier, and Odin hadn't banished his eldest son to Midgard? What if the silver-tongued trickster had been cursed with a mortal form instead, stripped of his magic, and sent to an alien world in the same moments that he discovered his true parentage? What if Thor had instead watched his brother hurled along the Bifrost to Earth, and was forced to take Asgard's throne before he was ready? The universe has inverted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Divergence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nayanroo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nayanroo/gifts).



> The Inversionverse series takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and may draw from the MCU, Marvel comics, and mythology. All chapters of this story begin with a verse from the Lokasenna translation available at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe10.htm. Inversion, the first installment of the series, begins during the events of Thor (2011). Some lines have been lovingly borrowed from the film to provide context, and I do not claim them as mine. Think of them like little Easter eggs (which is a shock for Marvel movies fans, I know). All characters are copyright of their respective creators.
> 
> Please note that Part Three (chapters 11-15) will include depictions of violence and some gore. Chapters including this will have warnings in the chapter notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 1-5 are grouped together as one of three parts to Inversion. Inversion is all one story, and is the first story in the Inversionverse series, but when it was originally written, Inversion had three distinct parts separated by MASSIVE plot. Expect there to be a shift after chapters 5 and 10. Look for the clues in the Lokasenna verses.

  
_Loki spake:_

_“In shall I go into Ægir’s hall,_  
 _For the feast I fain would see;_  
 _Bale and hatred I bring to the gods,_  
 _And their mead with venom I mix.”_

_–Lokasenna 3_  


_#  
_

_“Laufey, end this now.”  
_

_“Your boy sought this out.”  
_

_“You’re right, but these are the actions of a boy. Treat them as such. You and I can end this, here and now, before there’s further bloodshed.”  
_

_“We are beyond diplomacy now, Allfather. He’ll get what he came for. War, and death.”  
_

_“So be it.”_

_#  
_

_  
_He had barely the opportunity to gather his feet under him and turn toward the sudden roar before he was struck. His palms slapped against something smooth as the blow took him across his chest and stomach, knocking the air from his body. The base of his skull collided with a sickening thud against the ground. He couldn’t breathe, let alone move, and the howling tempest of the Bifrost was gone. Blood pooled in the corners of his mouth, and his eyelids refused to obey him and open.

“I think that was legally your fault!”

“Get the first aid kit.” Someone knelt beside his body, and the warmth of a hand hovered just above his arm. “Do me a favor and don’t be dead. Please!”

He sucked in a breath. Fierce blue light lanced into his eyes, and he squinted, a low moan escaping his lips. What injury was this that he wasn’t healing? Why did his breathing sound so different, the air feel so strange?

“Whoa, does he need CPR? Because I totally know CPR.”

Loki focused at last on warm brown eyes backlit by some horrible device that shone into his aching pupils and sent pain piercing through to the back of his head. Her lips were parted, reddened from an increased blood flow rather than any sort of stain or paint. Not an elf. He fell back onto the ground, the throbbing behind his eyes near unbearable now as the ache in his torso began.

“Where did he come from?”

There was no scent of the sea anywhere, and the woman’s flesh had neither the cracked knuckles that came from the salt air nor the sun-darkened hue of days spent in the long grasses. If she was royalty, though, her clothing would be richer, finer. Loki struggled to regain his footing, teeth clenched against another muffled cry. Not Vanir.

“No,” he murmured, craning his neck back to look at the sky. “No, you can’t do this.” He twisted his hands, fingers curled into claws, and yet… “Nothing.” His eyes widened. “No magic.”

“Yeah, no magic. Riiight. Guy’s hammered.”

“Hammer…” He looked at the sky again and almost shouted. Surely Thor would be there, watching, and Heimdall would tell him, and…

“Oh my god, Erik. Look at this! We have to move quickly before this all changes!”

“Jane, we have to take him to the hospital.”

“He’s fine, look at him.”

Loki began to pace, his heart pounding in his throat. “This has to be a mistake. He can’t mean…” Agony lanced through his ribs again. “You can’t _do_ this to me!” He shouted it at the sky, gripping his middle. “Bring me _back_! Open the Bifrost!”

“…Hospital. You go. I’ll stay.”

“What realm is this?” He spun around, eyeing the markings left from the touch of the bridge. “It has to be within Yggdrasil if the Bifrost…” Loki shook his head, panic tightening his throat. With no magic… He stalked toward the smallest of them, who pointed something at his chest that he couldn’t see. “ _What realm is this_ ,” he hissed.

“…New Mexico?”

“ _Answer me!_ ” Loki jerked suddenly, two small devices sending a jolting, buzzing pain through him that locked his muscles, and he fell to the ground once more. The voices grew distant as he lost consciousness.

“What? He was freaking me out!”

 

_#_

_“The casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim, was it?”  
_

_“Do you realize what you’ve done? What you’ve started?”  
_

_“Tell me the truth!”  
_

_“Your troubles are meant to come before our truce? Before peace?”  
_

_“Does Thor know what I am? Did you ever tell your favored son what manner of creature he played with as a boy?”  
_

_“Do not speak of the brother you would have left to the mercy of the Frost Giants!”  
_

_“He’s not even my brother, is he? Why don’t you tell him? Why don’t you tell me? Tell me what I am!”  
_

_“You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!”  
_

_“I only ever wanted to be his equal, but I was never even his blood! Nor yours! I’m not even Æsir, am I? You took me for a purpose. What was it?”  
_

_“Loki Laufeyson, you have betrayed the express command of your king.”  
_

_“…Laufey’s son…?”  
_

_“Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war.”  
_

_“…No… no, you lied to me!”  
_

_“You are unworthy of these realms. You are unworthy of your title. You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed.”  
_

_“Why, because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?”  
_

_“I now take from you your power. In the name of my father, and his father before, I, Odin Allfather, cast you out!”_

_#  
_

_  
_“Hi. Just taking a little blood.”

Loki’s hands clenched into fists, and he waited until the man moved closer before swinging his arm out, catching his jaw with the edge of his wrist. He leapt from the bed and whirled around, driving his elbow into another man’s nose and shoving at a woman who shouted for security as she attempted to restrain him. Who were these people? They must have had magic if they were drawing his blood. Such a thing could only be for the purpose of a black curse.

Something sharp jabbed into the side of his neck as he was slammed into a wall, and the world was swimming.  
  


_“You are unworthy.”_  
  


Everything around him seemed a different shade of white, and Loki swallowed against the dryness in his mouth as his vision sharpened again. There were restraints around his wrists and ankles.  Something was buzzing somewhere, everywhere, and the scent of the room was lifeless and wrong and…

Loki closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath, counting to seven before releasing it for a count of nine. His heartbeat began to slow, thumping in time to his counts, and with effort, he made conscious note of every muscle in his body. They relaxed, one by one, and at last he opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling above. He was restrained, his blood had been taken, and he had no magic.

Not yet, at any rate.

A few twists and careful tugs found his slender hands free, and the dizziness that had overtaken him before was a mere memory as he pushed himself carefully into a sitting position to unbind his legs. At last, he noticed his clothing, some drab, light garment of the dullest blue that gapped most unflatteringly in the back. He made short work of the knot at the base of his neck, and the garment puddled in his lap. Better to be nude than so undignified. His lip curled. Whoever designed such a thing had surely intended humiliation. No one in their right mind would subject a prince–

No. No, he wasn’t a prince any longer, was he? His identity was a lie. Did Laufey even know that he had a son? Would he welcome a bastard child raised by an enemy even if he did, or would he see the traitor from Odin’s house as yet another expendable prisoner of war, just another relic from the Allfather’s stores? Loki had indeed led the Frost Giants into Asgard, and to their deaths. Then, he had accompanied his bro– he had accompanied Thor to Jotunheim to bring about more death. No, Loki was no prince. An exile and a traitor, but no prince, and no one’s son any longer.

“Mother,” he murmured softly to no one in particular. “Did you know, as well?”

He stood, abandoning the ridiculous garment on the bed, and began opening drawers. Nothing much of interest until he found his clothes, neatly folded behind an absurdly curved receptacle the color of day old cheese left in the sun. He dressed slowly, the black trousers and tunic strangely light without his armor over them. His boots, he found, were beside a chair, and after flicking his wrist again to no avail, pulled them on and laced them by hand, ignoring the fact that his hands were trembling.

So the Allfather truly had cast him out, but to where? He knew nothing of a realm like this, but in order for him to have been delivered here by the Bifrost, it had to be one of the worlds within Yggdrasil. There were certainly no ice giants or fire demons, nor trolls, so perhaps they were…

Loki blinked at the wall, then rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “You put me on Midgard.” His sigh seemed to take all of the energy from his body. “Wonderful. Our forays with humanity were so delightful the first time. Perhaps they’ll write more sagas about me mating with a horse.” He shook his head. “Now you’re talking to yourself, Loki. Madness claims you after all.”

There was little worth picking up within that room, but as he walked down the many hallways, attempting to keep the pinched look from his face as the strange, acrid smell pierced his nose, his quick hands liberated some small objects from various carts and desks. A long, slender blade that looked not quite hardy enough to slice through an over-ripened fruit proved to open skin much more effectively than he thought, and he put his bleeding thumb in his mouth and kept to the shadows. It didn’t take long to realize that the white cloak-like garments seemed to signify a position of some station, and areas rife with them were to be avoided.

After what seemed like an hour, Loki eased his way through doors that opened of their own accord when he approached, and he stepped out into the sunlight with the odd little knife concealed up his sleeve.

A vehicle struck him in the side, knocking him to the ground, and he cursed under his breath as a familiar female voice cried out from within. The woman whose face he had first seen upon landing rushed to his side. “I swear I’m not doing this on purpose!”

Loki’s eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his side, dropping the knife quickly to the ground. “One does begin to wonder.”


	2. Denial

  
_Loki spake:_

_“Bethink thee, Eldir, if thou and I_   
_Shall strive with spiteful speech;_   
_Richer I grow in ready words_   
_If thou speakest too much to me.”_

_Then Loki went into the hall, but when they who were there saw who had entered, they were all silent._

_–Lokasenna 5_   


_  
_#

_  
_“You can’t banish Loki!”

“It is already done.”

Thor dropped Mjolnir in the center of the floor. The ground cracked and splintered, sending a ringing through the entire room that turned all heads to him. Odin stopped his slow trek toward the corridors leading to the family’s chambers, and Thor tightened his fists at his sides as Frigga hurried into the throne room. “You must bring him home.”

Frigga’s eyes widened, and she turned to Odin. “Where is Loki?”

The force with which the Allfather let the breath out of his body made Thor flinch. Suddenly his father looked little like the king who presided over Asgard and protected the Nine Realms. Before him stood an old man, weary and overcome by sorrows Thor couldn’t begin to comprehend. “Loki is gone,” he said simply, and Frigga clapped her hands over her mouth.

“No. Thor, where is your brother?”

“Father banished him from Asgard, and I want to know why!”

Odin turned at last, fixing his eye on Thor and spinning Gungnir in one hand. “Because Loki Silvertongue betrayed this realm. He led the Frost Giants into the weapons’ vault. He goaded you and your friends to Jotunheim on that foolish quest–”

“It was my doing that sent us to Jotunheim!”

“He should have stopped you!” Odin’s fist tightened, Gungnir shaking at his side. “But he spoke words he knew would plant the seed in your mind. He manipulated you all into starting a war with the Frost Giants!”

Frigga made some subtle motion with one hand, and the servants who had not already fled at the Allfather’s wrath dispersed quickly. She fixed her gaze on her husband and took a step forward, her entire body taut with barely contained emotion. “Where is my _son?_ ”

“He is _not_ your son!”

Frigga’s palm flew forward, and Odin caught her wrist before she connected with his cheek. They glared at each other, and Thor swallowed hard as his mother’s voice came like ice. “He is my son. Who but a mother can name her child? Even you cannot take that from us.”

“…Is it true, then?” For all his girth and strength, Thor was no more than a little boy, frightened of the thunder he had not yet learned to control.

Odin released her hand, shoulders slumping. “Loki is the son of Laufey. After the war was ended and the casket taken, I found Laufey’s son abandoned in a temple to die.”

Thor’s brows knitted together. “Why?”

“The Jotnar abandon the little ones of their kind. Runts.” Frigga spat the word as though it left a foul taste in her mouth. “They see a smaller stature as a sign of weakness.”

A white hot knife seemed to be twisting inside Thor’s belly, carving his stomach to ribbons. “So Laufey left him to _die?_ ”

“And your father took him from Jotunheim with his skin warmed to the color of ours, and his eyes green instead of red.” She narrowed her eyes at Odin. “And from the very moment you placed him in my arms, _he was my son_.”

“His crimes against this realm and its heir cannot go unpunished.”

Thor shook his head. “Father…”

“They _will_ not go unpunished! Enough!”

Frigga seemed to draw herself up to a greater height, and Thor flinched as the air around her began to crackle with magic. “You sent my son from his home as a punishment? With no trial? Without telling me?”

“What would you have done?”

“I would not have banished him!”

“This is why I am king!”

“And I am queen, Allfather. You will not forget that.” Her throat worked, jaw tightening until Thor feared she would crack her teeth. “You have left me little choice, lest our people see a rift between king and queen at a time of war, but be assured that I will not abandon my son to an alien world with no aid.”

“There is nothing you can do for him on Midgard when we must now prepare for war with Jotunheim.”

“I can watch over him, as I have done since he was a baby.” She took another step closer. “I can’t bring him back to Asgard, but I can ensure that he isn’t alone while he learns whatever twisted lesson you intend to teach him through this vain cruelty.” She turned in a whirlwind of skirts and strode down the corridor like a flash of lightning. Odin watched her go before bowing his head.

“The responsibilities of a king do not often coincide with the needs of a father,” he said softly. “We cannot afford this rift, not now.”

Thor shook his head. “We defeated the Jotuns before, we can do so again.”

“I was a much younger man, and your mother was not enraged with me.” He gave Thor the weakest shadow of a smile. “And you were just a boy.”

“And Loki was just a babe.” The knife drove upward into his heart. “Why would you do this? Why can’t you bring him home?”

“Because if I bring him home now, he will go to Laufey. He is not ready.”

“You nearly made me king. If I was ready, then so is Loki.” Odin’s grip on Gungnir began to falter, but Thor continued. “How did he discover this? Why did you not tell him who he was before, so that he wouldn’t feel this betrayal? You can’t just leave him on–“

The clatter of Gungnir on the stone floor was lost at the crash of the Allfather’s armor. Thor sprinted toward the throne, Mjolnir long forgotten, and cried out.

For a long time, no one came.

 

_#_

“She will not leave my father’s bedside now,” Thor said softly, elbows resting on his knees. He studied his boots so that he wouldn’t have to look at any of their faces. Volstagg had stopped rubbing the ointment on the blackened skin of his forearm. Fandral, in spite of the still healing wounds that had pierced cleanly through his chest and shoulders, was sitting straight up with his jaw dropping. Even Hogun’s eyes were too wide, like those of a startled horse. Thor kept his head down, trying and failing to ignore what he saw in his peripheral vision, though with his face turned just so he could pretend that Sif was not seated beside him, and he needn’t think of what expression now crossed her features. “The last words she spoke to him were in anger. I have never seen my mother like that.”

“Wait, Loki’s fond of mischief, of course, but treason?” Fandral sat back with a grimace. “That can’t be. That’s too much, even for him.”

“Laufey said the House of Odin is full of traitors. There may be others.”

“Hogun, you just called Loki a traitor.” Volstagg shook his head. “He can’t be. There has to be some other explanation. We just need to go to Earth and–”

Thor shook his head. “We can’t. If we leave, Jotunheim will attack.”

Fandral’s brows furrowed. “They can’t get to Asgard without the Bifrost or the Casket of Ancient Winters. They won’t be able to.”

“Loki already showed them the way,” Hogun said, and Fandral sighed.

“Well, there is that.”

“You’re the king,” Sif said suddenly, and Thor looked up at her. Her expression was that of someone who’d just been slapped, and he suspected it mirrored his. “You’re king of Asgard now, until the Allfather wakes from the Odinsleep.”

Thor’s head dropped again. “I can’t.”

Fandral narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “You were nearly crowned but a day ago, of course you can.”

He swallowed. “How can I be king without Loki here? How can I sit on the throne and leave my brother in exile?”

“You don’t have a choice,” Sif urged, sliding her hand over his. He stared. Their betrothal had always been implied, and they were certainly no strangers to each other’s bodies, but they never touched in front of anyone else, especially like this. He met her eyes and felt the same burning wound in his stomach.

“How can we abandon Loki?”

“We’re not going to abandon him. We just need to think of Asgard now.” She squeezed his fingers. “We’re all here for you, Thor. We’ll help you.”

“That’s right.” Volstagg nodded, rubbing the ointment on his arm again. “We’ll just take care of Asgard first, stop the war, and then we’ll find Loki.”

“That’s as worthy a quest as I’ve ever been on.” Fandral gave Thor a weak smile. “This can be done, one step at a time.”

Thor looked at each of them in turn, finally settling his gaze on the downward curve of Sif’s mouth. “He wouldn’t abandon me.”

She swallowed hard. “…We don’t know that he wouldn’t, Thor.”

He jerked his hand away from her. “He wouldn’t.”

“If all of this is true, he already did. He goaded you into Jotunheim. You could have been killed.”

“You were not so quick to judge him before you know of his blood,” Thor snapped.

Fandral closed his eyes. “Thor, what she means is–“

“I know what was meant.” His jaw trembled. “He is _still_ my brother, whoever birthed him, and I will _not_ abandon him.”

“So you’ll abandon the rest of Asgard to war?” Sif’s eyes flashed. “You have a duty.”

“To my brother as well as to this realm,” he growled, standing. “I will sit the throne as long as Asgard needs it, but I will not give up on my brother. I may not have magic, but I will find a way to bring him home.”


	3. Discharge

  
_Loki spake:_

_“Thirsty I come into this thine hall,_   
_I, Lopt, from a journey long,_   
_To ask the gods that one should give_   
_Fair mead for a drink to me.”_

_–Lokasenna 6_   


_#  
_

“…You cannot be serious.” His eyebrows shot up. “This is what your people do after giving grievous injury to another by striking them with a… whatever that was? You clothe them in this nonsense? Humiliation after injury?”

Jane pressed her lips together and pretended to ignore Darcy’s snickering. “Well, it’s not like _I_ have clothes that are going to fit you.”

He blinked slowly, voice flat. “So you do not make a habit out of assaulting strange men. Small comfort.”

“I just thought maybe you’d want some new clothes.”

“Mine are sufficient.”

She raised both hands in the air. “Fine, not my business. Just thought you’d want something clean so you could take a shower.”

Loki lifted the edge of one of the garments between two fingers. “First that blue humiliation, and now this.”

“What blue humiliation?”

“Probably a hospital gown,” Darcy chimed in, taking the lollipop out of her mouth and leaning back in her chair. “You had a butt gap, didn’t you?”

“…A what?”

“Butt gap. Happens.”

Loki stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and turned back to Jane. “I suppose I’m being rather rude. Forgive me. It’s been… quite a day. Merely hunger and fatigue. I thank you for the gesture.”

Jane managed a small smile. “Um, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t give it.” He sighed quietly. “I am Loki, of Asgard, though that hardly matters at this juncture.”

Erik set the photographs he’d been studying back down on the table and turned. “Loki. Really.”

“Yes, Loki.”

“From Asgard.”

One eyebrow arched. “Was my speech unclear?”

Erik crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re Loki from Asgard.”

Loki blinked once before turning to Jane. “There appears to be some nuance in your communication that I don’t understand. What is the significance of repeating everything I say?”

Darcy snorted, and Jane cleared her throat. “I, ah, have some questions I’d like to ask you.”

“And I find myself disinclined to acquiesce to your line of questioning.” Loki smiled. “So we are at an impasse.”

Darcy leaned back again. “What if I bribe you with Pop Tarts?”

He flicked his eyes to her. “What is that?”

“Food.”

He tilted his head. “…I could be persuaded.” He glanced at the pile of clothing again, then shrugged into the overshirt, carefully smoothing all expression from his face as the dark green garment hung loosely from his shoulders. “Thank you.”

Jane glanced over her shoulder. “It’s Erik’s, I only had some of my ex’s clothes, and he was bigger, so…” She cleared her throat again. “So, you were inside that event.”

Darcy handed him a small package, and when he raised his eyebrows, she tore the edge off of one of her own. “You’ve really never had a Pop Tart before?”

“No, I was unaware of what it was.” He ripped the foil and drew out the odd little pastry, studying it. “…This is edible?”

“Yeah, it’s awesome. S’mores flavor.”

How something so… shiny… could be a food was beyond him, but he took a small bite from the corner. Whatever expression crossed his face was apparently amusing. “It’s rather sweeter than I expected.”

“Processed tasty chemical zing. You’re welcome.”

Loki set the rectangular object back into the foil wrapper with the other and held them carefully in his hands, taking in the room full of strange machinery and doing his best to avoid the curious brown eyes that glanced up at him every so often from her notebook. Vast windows displayed an expanse of arid desert that twisted his insides. This was not the Midgard they’d visited before, when they were young. “Are there no fjords left,” he asked quietly.

Erik shifted. “In Norway, Iceland, Greenland.”

“Are those places very far from here?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Loki nodded, turning the foil package over in his hands. “In which direction?”

Erik raised his eyebrows and pointed.

Loki nodded again, managing a small smile that was barely there at all. “I thank you for your generosity.” He moved toward the door, and Jane darted in front of him.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Didn’t you hear him, Jane?” Erik’s voice was almost musical in its sarcasm. “He’s walking to Norway.”

Darcy blinked several times. “Dude, your boots are gonna hurt.”

It was difficult to look away from those eyes when they widened with such earnestness, and the corner of his mouth twitched as he saw her struggle to calculate the most effective words to use. “Is there something you wish to say, Jane Foster?”

She pressed her lips together. “I thought maybe I could… buy you breakfast. Can’t walk to Norway on a Pop Tart.”

“Two Pop Tarts,” Darcy chimed in.

Jane nodded. “Right. Two Pop Tarts.”

Loki allowed himself a smile, but just a little one. “And what are you asking in return?”

“Oh, nothing, seeing how I kind of… grazed you.”

“Hit me.”

“I grazed you.”

“I am tempted to claim that you were aiming for my vital organs.”

Jane drew a deep breath. “How about breakfast and a place to stay, get some sleep before the big Norway walk?”

He grinned. “I suppose a day won’t matter.” The mirth faded from his voice. “All I have now is time.”

 

_#_

 

Laufey found himself prowling the frozen bridge several times a day and peering at the damage done by the little band of Asgardians with a strange fascination. Something had been wrong, and as he bent to trace one of the jagged holes left by the little prince’s hammer, his mind wandered to the second son, and the piercing green eyes. Who else but the Trickster could have led his men into Asgard? More to the point, how could he use this suspicion against the Allfather?

Grundroth approached his king quietly, his fist over his heart. Laufey didn’t bother to stand, merely waved a hand over his shoulder. “There’s been activity on the Bifrost, my king.”

“And where does Asgard send its little princelings now?”

“To Midgard.”

Laufey stood slowly, brushing snow from his fingertips. “Why go back to Midgard after all this time? How many of them?”

“We don’t know.”

“To protect them, no doubt.” His eyes narrowed. “Or to protect something else.” He studied the giant before him until Grundroth shifted his weight uncomfortably. “You goaded the little prince into attacking us.” Laufey circled him, voice low. “But you also fought the princeling. Something happened.”

“His… his skin didn’t burn.”

“What?”

“His skin didn’t burn at our touch. Loki wasn’t hurt by our magic.”

The corners of Laufey’s mouth turned down. “He is a master of magic, of course he shielded himself from our power. He has our casket within reach to practice. Get out of here before I send you the way of the Frost Beast.”

Grundroth executed a hasty bow and turned back toward the palace, and Laufey allowed himself a wide smile at his lieutenant’s retreating back. So, the princeling was one of them. At his age, he would be just as old as…

Laufey turned his gaze upward with a short laugh. “Allfather, what _have_ you done?” He chuckled to himself as he resumed his pacing. His son lived, did he? Well, not for long.

 

_#_

 

“…I’m not certain what most of these are,” Loki said quietly, studying the menu with narrowed eyes.

“The pancakes are awesome.”

His eyebrow rose. “My dear Miss Lewis, the last time you told me something was ‘awesome,’ I ingested a Pop Tart. Forgive me for not leaping to follow your advice.”

Jane didn’t look up from her notebook. “Pancakes are pretty tame. Eggs, flour, milk, sometimes fruit, cover them in maple syrup. So how did you get here?”

“…I traveled.” He gave the waitress a small smile as he returned the menu. “Pancakes, then.”

“Comin’ right up,honey.” She looked him over critically. “You want me to throw some bacon in there, too? Look like a strong breeze is gonna blow you away.”

Loki swallowed and smoothed his expression into the charming lines he generally saved for ambassadors with pretty daughters. “I leave my fate entirely in your hands, dear woman. One as lovely as yourself would never lead a man astray, I’m sure. I would, however, be inexplicably grateful for fresh fruit, if you would be so kind.”

She smirked. “Not gonna give you Pop Tarts, tell you that much. And you, sweetie?”

“Coffee and toast,” Jane said absently, flipping between two pages.

“Chocolate chip pancakes and coffee.”

Erik shook his head. “I think my cholesterol just went up hearing you order that. Toast and coffee, Izzy, thank you.”

“You got it.”

Jane looked up. “So, what kind of travel.”

Loki held her eyes and settled back in his chair. “The sort of travel that brings you from one point to another.”

She held his eyes and tilted her head. “I saw someone else’s stars through that event, Loki.”

“Did you?”

“And you were inside that event.”

“I suppose I was.”

“Which means you came from someplace else.”

Erik sighed. “Jane, stop speculating.”

“No, allow her to continue.” Loki leaned his arms on the table and smirked. “Go on. What have you discovered?”

Her spine stiffened. “That was an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not familiar with that term.”

“Wormhole,” Darcy supplied as Izzy filled their mugs with something warm and brown. “It’s a wormhole. She thinks you’re an alien.”

Erik let out a slow breath. “This is enough. Let’s just eat, and we’ll send our friend on his way.”

“Unless, of course, you would like answers, Jane Foster.” He lowered his voice. “Would you like to know where those stars are located? Whose night sky you were seeing?”

Her lips parted slightly. “I knew it.”

Erik’s hand clamped down on her arm. “Jane.”

Loki glanced up. Several men in what appeared to be Midgardian formal attire approached, one with dark guards of some sort over his eyes. He removed them and offered the same sort of small, tight-lipped smile that Loki was all too familiar with. “Dr. Foster, Dr. Selvig, I’m Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. I believe you have someone with you that we need to speak to.”

Jane opened her mouth, then spun around at the sound of a vehicle. “That’s my van! What are you–”

Loki let his breath out slowly as the man handed her a small slip of paper. “This should more than compensate you, but this is now a matter of national security.”

“You can’t just take my equipment!”

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.”

Erik’s grip on her arm tightened. “Jane, let it go.”

“Let it _go?_ They’re stealing my equipment!” She jabbed the notebook into the man’s chest. “This is a violation of my constitutional rights.”

“Please don’t make a further scene, Dr. Foster.”

“Jane, _sit down_.”

“No, Erik, I’m not sitting down. This is _theft_ , you can’t just up and take my… hey!” She spun around as one of the men plucked the notebook from her hand. “You can’t just _take_ that!”

“Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Foster.” He turned at last to Loki, who fixed him with a stare that had cowed kings but seemed not to phase the man in the slightest. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”

Loki stood slowly, his nose at eye-level with the man, and spoke slowly. “You will return what you have stolen,” he hissed, “or I will indeed cause a scene.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. We’d prefer that you come quietly.”

“We would all prefer many things, I should think.”

“I’m authorized to bring you in using whatever means necessary, sir.” His smile never wavered. “Please come quietly.”

Loki flicked his eyes to Jane, who was slapping one of the men’s hands off of her shoulder as she moved forward. “You’re _arresting_ him?”

“I’m bringing him in for questioning pertaining to a matter of national security.” He pulled a small card from the inside of his jacket and handed it to Jane without looking away from Loki. “Now, sir, if you’d come with us.”

His head tilted. “These people have offered hospitality. I will not allow this sort of treatment.”

“Then we can have a nice long talk about it in the car.”

He held the man’s gaze for a long time. “I will step outside in but a moment.”

“I’ll wait.”

He looked at Jane, whose mouth was hanging open. “You will have your answers,” he said quietly.

“You’re not actually going with them.”

“There is little else I can do.” _Without magic_ , he added silently. “I apologize for leaving our meal so abruptly.” His smile was unpleasant. “Son of Coul, was it?”

“Whatever makes you happy.”

“You do not wish to see what would make me happy.”

“Let’s talk about it outside.”

Loki followed them out of the diner with his hands clasped behind his back, the sounds of Erik holding Jane back almost deafening in spite of their low volume. A sleek black vehicle was waiting outside. One of them tossed Jane’s notebook carelessly through one of the doors, and Loki swung his arm out suddenly to catch him in the base of the skull with the edge of his hand. He dropped low to the ground as several pairs of hands grabbed at him, and smiled at the sickening crack as his palm drove upward into a nose. The smile was short-lived as the familiar sensation of a current shooting through two small projectiles locked up his muscles again, and he saw Coulson placing the dark shade over his eyes again.

“Don’t make me taze you again,” he said, and Loki was loaded unceremoniously into the back seat.


	4. Disonance

  
_“Why sit ye silent, swollen with pride,_   
_Ye gods, and no answer give?_   
_At your feast a place and a seat prepare me,_   
_Or bid me forth to fare.”_

_–Lokasenna 7_   


_#  
_

_  
_“Why didn’t you ever tell him?”

Frigga smoothed a stray hair from Odin’s forehead. “Your father wanted to protect him from the truth. And you.” Her eyes met Thor’s over the Allfather’s prone form. “The Frost Giants have been enemies of Asgard for longer than you’ve been alive. That hatred runs deep in both realms, and how easy would it have been to look at him and see an enemy instead of your brother?”

“I would never–”

“Not now, no, but as a child?” She sighed and looked at her husband again. “I wanted to tell him, but your father was right. If Loki had known what he was, he would always have felt like an outsider, and he needed no additional reasons to feel inferior to you.”

Thor’s brows furrowed. “To me? Why?”

“You saw it, Thor, how he always struggled because his talents were for magic and his studies instead of battles.” She shook her head. “But he shouldn’t be alone after finding out the truth. Not now.”

“Is there no way to bring him back?”

“I’m trying to find a way, but without his powers…” Frigga ran her knuckle under her eye, voice steady. “That isn’t something that even your father can reverse. That’s something Loki has to do on his own.”

Thor shook his head. “How can he regain his powers _without_ his powers? He’s banished to a world we haven’t visited in _centuries_ , without his magic, without his friends…” He cut himself off and took several breaths to steady himself. There was nothing he could do. “I will never be used to seeing father like this.”

“He put it off for so long.” There was a tightness around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. “And the last words I spoke to him were in anger.”

“It was difficult for all of us. Father will understand.”

“I know. That doesn’t lessen the pain of seeing him this way.”

Thor was silent for several minutes. “Why would Loki do this? Lead the Frost Giants into Asgard?”

“I don’t know, Thor, but your father was right. That cannot go unpunished.” She looked down at her hands. “Much as it pains me to know my son is so far from us, alone… there is purpose to everything your father does.” She gave Thor a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “We have to trust that Loki will find a way back to his powers and come home to us.” She looked at Odin once more. “If he still wishes to return to us.”

Thor’s chest constricted. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“What would you do if you discovered that you had been lied to all of your life?” Frigga’s eyes were unusually hollow. “And when we still cannot say why Loki betrayed Asgard to the Frost Giants in the first place… even I have little insight into where his mind is now. It pains me more than you will ever know to say this, but after all that’s happened, I cannot be sure that Loki wouldn’t go to Laufey if he had the chance.”

Thor shook his head. “No. Loki wouldn’t betray us.”

She looked almost as tired as Odin had in the throne room when she met his eyes again. “He already has.”

 

_#_

“Loki banished to Midgard. Thor on the throne refusing to speak to any of us. Asgard on the brink of war.” Fandral spun around to narrow his eyes at Volstagg. “And yet, you manage to consume four wild boars, six pheasants, a side of beef, and two casks of ale. Shame on you, don’t you care?”

Volstagg dropped his plate onto the table. “Do not mistake my appetite for apathy!”

Sif put a hand to Fandral’s chest as Hogun gripped Volstagg’s arm. “Stop it, both of you,” she snapped. “This accomplishes nothing.”

“Then what are we supposed to do, exactly? One brother a Frost Giant and branded a traitor, lost to us, and the other moping about upon the throne as though he’s never seen a day of happiness in his life!” Fandral spun around and rubbed the back of his neck. “How are we to help either of them if they won’t allow it? If we even _could_ help Loki, that is.”

“There has to be a way.” Volstagg plucked up his cup and took a long drink. “There has to be.”

Sif’s arms dropped limply to her sides. “We don’t even know whether Loki _should_ be helped.”

Hogun’s eyes locked on hers. “You think Loki did betray us.”

“Didn’t he?” She shrugged. “We’ve all known him for years and none of us ever saw this coming. He led the Frost Giants into the weapons’ vault. How else are we to interpret that?”

“Many ways.” Volstagg couldn’t quite meet her eyes as he spoke. “Loki loves Asgard.”

“But he’s always been jealous of Thor.”

“They’re brothers! What brothers don’t have jealousy for each other?”

Hogun’s voice was quiet. “But how many of them try to get each other killed?”

“You’ve clearly never met my brothers,” Fandral said, crossing his arms over his chest. “The point is that we don’t know what happened, and the only man who does is banished to Earth without his powers.”

“And bringing him back could be disastrous,” Sif said. “Not just because we don’t know why he did what he did, but because if he’s Laufey’s son…”

Fandral’s eyes narrowed. “What, you think now that he’d lead Laufey into Asgard?”

“Or Laufey might try to take him. Or any number of things we can’t even begin to guess at.”

Hogun shook his head. “The only way we’ll know is from Loki himself.”

“And he’s the one person we can’t speak to right now.” Fandral rubbed his hand over his beard. “We can’t leave things like this with Thor, especially now.”

Sif nodded. “You’re right. Speaking with him is the one thing we can actually do.”

 

_#_

Thor was avoiding the throne room, however, and instead made the slow journey by foot to the end of the Bifrost. Heimdall’s station did not seem to grow much closer as he walked, but it was better than sitting in a chair that suddenly felt too big in a room that felt too empty.

_“Nervous, brother?”_

_Thor chuckled. “Have you ever known me to be nervous?”_

_Loki’s eyes narrowed, the smile not quite fading. “Well, there was the time in Nornheim…”_

_“That was not nerves, brother, that was the rage of battle.”_

_“Ah. I see.”_

_“How else could I have fought my way through a hundred warriors and pulled us out alive?”_

_Loki tilted his head. “As I recall, I was the one who veiled us in smoke to ease our escape.”_

_Thor laughed and turned away. “Yes. Some do battle while others just do tricks.”_

_Beside them, the servant holding the wine goblet snickered. Loki’s smile faded immediately, eyebrows raised at the obvious disrespect. A quick twist of his wrist turned the wine to snakes, and Loki only laughed again when the servant dropped the tray and goblet with a clatter._

That laughter had been different, and Thor had been too centered on his own emotions and the adrenaline coursing through him to realize. He had never been laughed at in such a manner, particularly in front of anyone else, but it had been commonplace with Loki. With a pang, Thor could recount endless instances of others, be they noble-born or the palace staff, dismissing his Trickster brother in ways they would never have dismissed him. Loki had never retaliated as most monarchs would have; he jested and made mischief, because it was all he knew how to do, and made light when Thor admonished him for it. How long had he held that resentment in his heart?

_The helmet had felt heavier as the guard placed it in his hands, and merriment gave way to a trepidation that Thor was unaccustomed to. He swallowed, the corners of his mouth turning down, and stared at the silvery wings while his stomach flipped over itself. He could feel Loki’s eyes on him._

_“Ooh, nice feathers.”_

_The laughter returned all at once, and he grinned at his brother. “You don’t really want to start this again, do you? Cow?”_

_“I was being sincere.”_

_“You are incapable of sincerity.”_

_“Am I?”_

_“Yes.”_

Thor rubbed his hand across his face. What had been his brother’s sin, aside from noting the sudden discomfort and, he could admit it now, fear? He had returned Loki’s successful attempt to bring humor to his brother’s eyes with insults, jabs that Loki brushed off with smiles.

_“I’ve looked forward to this day as long as you have.”_

“Why, Loki? What was your intent in bringing the Jotuns here?” Thor peered out at the cosmos as he approached the Gatekeeper’s station at last, Mjolnir dangling loosely from his hand. He went nowhere without his hammer now. War could come at any moment.

“You appear weary, my king.”

He let out a short breath. “You have not even looked at me, Heimdall.”

“That does not mean that I do not see.” He remained near motionless at his station, hands clasped on the great pommel of the massive sword that could open the Bifrost.

“And do you see Loki?”

“Yes.”

“How is he?” Thor squinted into the distance, willing himself to gain Heimdall’s powers.

“He does not fare well, but all is not lost.”

Thor shook his head. “Is there no way to help him?”

“I cannot open the Bifrost to him unless he asks me to do so, and to bring him back to Asgard in his mortal form would surely mean his death.”

“How so? A mortal could survive in Asgard, and we could find help for him.”

“A mortal could not survive Asgard at war. The Jotuns would sense it and destroy him. He is safe where he is.”

Thor swung Mjolnir idly, then tightened his grip around the handle. “I am not used to being unable to do something.”

Heimdall at last turned his piercing yellow eyes on him. “Do not lose faith. There is power in that realm. If Loki finds it, he will be able to return to Asgard.”

“What power?”

“An artifact from long ago that would allow Loki to remove the Allfather’s spell and regain his magic.” His eyes somehow seemed to sharpen, and Thor had to force himself not to flinch. “If the Jotuns were to travel to Earth before Loki finds it, all would be lost.”

“And any Asgardian presence would be quickly noted, and they would find a way to follow us there.” He sighed heavily. “Then there is truly nothing we can do.”

“Until Loki harnesses the energy of the Tesseract himself, no, not without endangering Asgard, which I am sworn never to do.”

Thor nodded and turned away as a burning began behind his eyes. “Watch over him, Heimdall.”

 

_#_

Sif and the Warriors Three skidded to a halt as they entered the empty throne room. Not even the guards stood their stations. Volstagg stumbled as his foot caught the edge of the depression in the floor where Mjolnir had been dropped.

“…This is eerie, isn’t it?” Fandral looked around them. “I don’t see anyone anywhere.”

Hogun shook his head. “This isn’t right.”

“Nothing is right today,” came Thor’s voice, and he appeared a moment later at the main doors, flanked by two guards. “You needed something from me?”

Sif swallowed, then glared at Fandral as he gave her a little shove with his elbow. “We were… oh, this is ridiculous.” She moved to meet him halfway, and the trio looked at each other before following after her. “Thor, we’re your friends. We can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

“We’re here for you.” Volstagg nodded, worry muting his usual cheerfulness.

“Regardless of any arguments we may have had,” Fandral added with a pointed look to Sif.

Hogun gripped Thor’s shoulder. “We will help you through this.”

Thor bowed his head, and when he lifted it again, there was moisture in his eyes. “Thank you. I haven’t…” He looked to the throne. “It didn’t seem so large when father was sitting in it.”

Fandral raised an eyebrow. “We could always pile into it first and you could sit on our laps.”

For the first time since leaving Jotunheim, Thor laughed.


	5. Drastic

  
_Loki spake:_

_“Remember, Othin, in olden days_   
_That we both our blood have mixed;_   
_Then didst thou promise no ale to pour,_   
_Unless it were brought for us both.”_

_–Lokasenna 9_   


_#  
_

_  
_By the time Loki’s eyes opened, his wrists were bound behind his back, and he was propped up in a chair in the center of a room devoid of anything but mirrors along one wall. He met Coulson’s eyes and began to laugh, a slight chuckle at first that grew to something almost hysterical. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, his whole body shaking with mirth.

“I fail to see what’s funny about this,” Coulson said, that cold little smile still playing on his mouth. Loki shook his head and continued laughing.

“I would not expect you to understand.”

“Try me.”

“Oh, I don’t think I will. This is much more fun.” He snickered again and settled back in his chair, turning his wrists slightly. The metal was tight. He wasn’t going to slip out of these unless he broke his thumbs, and in this mortal form, he couldn’t afford to take the time to heal. Not if there was another way out.

“I have some questions for you, and I’d like it very much if you answered them.”

“A pity, that.”

“I think you’ll answer.”

Loki grinned wide, voice soft. “Oh, I do love a good threat.”

“You see, I don’t.” His expression didn’t change much, but his jaw seemed to tighten ever so slightly, and there was a new darkness to his eyes. “Dr. Foster begins studying these events, and the one that touches down to Earth just happens to coincide with you suddenly appearing in the middle of Puente Antiguo.”

“What a remarkable coincidence.”

“No, it isn’t. I want to know who you are and where you’ve come from so I can determine whether you’re a threat to national security. Considering what you did to my agents outside of the diner, I’m leaning toward yes.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Oh, there’s much more than that you’d like to know. What is it that’s happened to bring you to such _drastic_ measures to detain me? This isn’t simply about my arrival.”

“You tell me.” He smiled again. “I’ve got all day.”

“So have I.”

“The only difference is that I had time to eat my breakfast this morning.” He gave Loki a maddening little grin. “Have a nice morning. I’ll be back after I finish my coffee. Get comfortable.”

 

_#_

Jane kicked her feet over the edge of the roof. “Years of research, gone.”

Darcy sighed. “They even took my iPod.”

Erik glanced over Darcy’s head at Jane. “What about the backups?”

Her jaw tightened. “They took our backups. They took the backups of our backups.”

“I just downloaded, like, thirty songs on there.”

“Can you stop with the iPod?” She turned her face toward the sky and inhaled deeply. “And we don’t have any answers now.”

“Jane, you weren’t going to get any answers anyway.”

“How can you say that? He was _inside_ that event, Erik!”

“He was saying that he’s Loki from Asgard! Those are the stories from my childhood. Myths. He’s a lunatic. You’re not going to get answers from a lunatic.”

Jane shook her head again. “You don’t know that.”

“Are you willing to take those kinds of risks?”

“What do we have to lose, Erik? They took everything. ”

“There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, you want to bet?”

Erik sighed heavily and shook his head. “Jane, I knew this scientist, a pioneer in gamma radiation. S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up, and that’s the last I heard from him.”

“I’m not just losing all my work. They took my equipment, Erik.”

“I know, but trust me, you don’t want to go against these people.”

“What I want are answers, and I’m not going to get them just sitting here doing nothing while S.H.I.E.L.D. has my stuff _and_ my best piece of evidence.”

Darcy blinked at Jane. “Uh… you _do_ know he’s a person, right?”

She shook her head. “Yeah, of course I know that.”

“So… if you do anything stupid, who knows what they’ll do to him. They might send him to Guantanamo Bay or something.”

“They’re not going to send him to Gitmo just because I want my equipment back.”

Erik stared straight ahead. “S.H.I.E.L.D. makes people disappear, Jane, and they said this was a matter of national security.”

She sighed through her nose. There had to be _something_ they could do.

 

_#_

 

The mortal body was much less equipped to deal with the long fasts and stresses that Loki normally put himself through, and he found it difficult to keep his eyes open. Each time he closed them, he jerked himself awake. The last things he wanted were dreams. Without his powers, he couldn’t control what he’d see, and his subconscious was likely his enemy. Hunger warred with fatigue until he was no longer certain that he was awake. Surely he couldn’t be. Not with his mother’s image in the mirror before him.

Loki blinked and squinted. She was faint, a mere ghost, but there was no doubt that it was Frigga behind the glass he faced. He licked his lips and swayed before straightening. “What cruel trick of the mind is this?”

“Loki?”

He smiled and closed his eyes. “You are not my mother. I have no magic to see you. My mind plays tricks. Cruel ones at that.”

“Loki, look at me.”

His eyes opened again, and his heart wrenched. “…You can’t be real.”

“Oh, Loki.”

“Delirium. Nothing but delirium.” The image flickered and faded, and his breath caught in his throat. Even if she had been real, he had no magic to sustain hers. He was lost.

No, there was always something left to be done, always another plot to devise, another scheme to hatch. Loki closed his eyes and regulated his breathing once more. In seven, out nine, in seven, out nine. The counting was a ritual in itself; even without the power coursing through his veins, this was its own magic. Without the distraction of vision, he was aware of the pulsing within the otherwise still room that indicated men and women outside. He could smell the sweat of at least one of the guards outside, indicating fear. He could hear murmurings, faint and muffled.

“If it’s still on, we have a serious problem.”

“No one knows what to do about it. There’s no way to shut it off. It’s just a cube. The gamma signature is too erratic to pinpoint any sort of frequency we can use to control it or shut it down. That’s what the scientists are saying, anyway.”

“It’d be too much to ask for an off switch, wouldn’t it?”

“Director Fury called in the reserves. He’s got this thing locked down so tight you’d have an easier time breaking into the Federal Reserve.”

“Or getting out.”

“What do you want to do about it, sir? If that guy knows something, we need to break him fast, or this whole thing could blow up in our faces. Literally.”

“I know, Barton.”

“You want me to take a crack at him?”

“No. We want him talking to us, not bruised.”

“They can still talk when they’re bruised.”

“That isn’t how we do things.”

“Normally I’d agree, but we’re talking about a serious time crunch here. We might not have time to make friends.”

“I hope you’re wrong.”

Loki smiled and relaxed against the chair. So that was what he was meant to find. The Allfather had a purpose for everything he did, and often more than one. “So be it,” he murmured as the door opened.

“That sounded defeatist.” Coulson closed the door behind him and walked slowly to stand in front of Loki. “Feeling all right?” Loki remained perfectly still and silent. He could hear Coulson sliding his hands into his pockets. “Should I be bringing in breakfast or a med team to deal with you?”

Loki opened his eyes and smiled slowly, showing all of his teeth as he raised his head. “You wish for answers about the Tesseract,” he said slowly, savoring each word as it rolled off his tongue. “Knowledge that I possess, and could share with you.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“For a price.”

“Name it.”

He tilted his head. “There’s little I find quite as uncomfortable as being forced to sit in the same location for an extended period of time, and without so much as a book.”

“You want out, I’m going to need a little more to go on. Maybe we should start with a name.”

He straightened and held the man’s eyes for several long seconds. “For such a courtesy, I demand the same. This has hardly been a pleasant day, and I find myself in need of food and well-fitting garments.” He flicked his eyes over Coulson. “Something similar to that would suffice, though a bit of color wouldn’t hurt.”

“You want a suit and a meal for your name.”

“Yes, I do, Agent Phil Coulson, and you are running out of time.”

 

_#  
_

 

Jane shook her head. This was stupid. She was driving to a portable government compound in the middle of the desert, by herself, to ask an agent who more or less black-bagged someone in front of a diner that morning for her equipment back. She kept her eyes on the road, knuckles turning white. People in Puente Antiguo were talking. A small town like that didn’t skip a beat. They knew the tall stranger with the amazing green eyes had knocked around government agents before taking a zap to the gut and being shoved into the back of a Lincoln town car. They knew that very same stranger had been with Jane, Darcy, and Erik just minutes before. They knew Jane’s van was suddenly gone, and the Jeep she’d borrowed without express permission had started to attract attention on her way outside the town limits. Erik would forgive her. Either that, or she’d be shot behind the shed and wouldn’t really need to worry about answering to him for borrowing his car.

The makeshift compound was in sight at last, surrounded by the most hastily-erected barbed wire fencing she’d ever seen. It looked like someone had covered an ant colony in white plastic. She wasn’t even sure those were actual buildings and not vehicles of some sort.

“Please don’t let this be a mistake,” she muttered as she turned the ignition off and opened the door. “And please don’t be crazy. Please, please don’t be crazy.” Jane crept forward, tucking her hair behind her ear, and had just enough time to wonder when a plan was going to take shape in her brain before a hand clamped down on her shoulder. She looked up into the unamused face of a blue-eyed man with what appeared to be a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. “Uh… hi there.”

“Hi there.”

“I think I got lost.”

“Funny, I don’t think you did.” He touched his ear briefly, resting a bow against her shoulder. “Coulson, we got company. I’m bringing her in. You want to clean this up before Fury sends in meaner backup?”

 

_#_

 

Loki ran the edges of the grey vest between his fingers before buttoning it over the white collared shirt, the very top left open. He had forgone the jacket and tie, the former far too warm for the current weather and the latter unnecessarily restrictive. His throat remained exposed, as always. The last thing he needed was anything inhibiting his ability to breathe. The now empty plate sat on the table beside him with small puddles of juice. Midgard had fresh fruit after all, wonder of wonders.

Coulson leaned against the wall as Loki tested his range of motion. “Now that we’ve wined and dined you, care to give us some answers?”

“In time,” he said softly, turning around and looking over his reflection in the mirror. The lines of the trousers and vest were nearly perfect, odd though the clothing still seemed. “There is one final thing I require.”

“I’m not giving you a car.”

“I must see the Tesseract myself, to ensure that you haven’t altered or damaged it in any way.”

“Why would I let you do that?”

Loki held his eyes. “Because you have no other choice. It’s becoming unstable, isn’t it? You can’t control it, and you have no idea what it’s capable of doing to your world.” He grinned. “Not like I do.”

Coulson closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “You’re going to have a taser, several high-powered rifles, and a compound bow aimed at you the entire time. Don’t try anything stupid.”

“There are many words you could use to describe me. Stupid is not one of them.”

“I can think of a few others.” He turned his head suddenly, brows furrowing, then sighed. “Which one of them is it… I’m not surprised. Bring her in. Maybe it’ll help.” Coulson looked at Loki again. “Looks like your friend decided to come visit. Why don’t we take a walk?”

Loki kept his hands clasped behind his back as Coulson led him down a twisted hall. His eyebrows shot up when he saw Jane Foster standing in front of one of the agents from the diner, a strange bow held loosely in one hand. “You do seem to find trouble easily,” he said softly, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“You got new clothes.”

“Yes, I did, and you seem to have been captured.”

The archer’s mouth curved. “Capture’s such a strong word.”

Loki tilted his head. “Would you prefer detained? Arrested, perhaps?”

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “See this? This is you not helping the situation.”

Loki smirked. “I rarely do.”

“What should I do with Dr. Foster, sir?”

“Why don’t you bring her with us? Maybe she’ll understand what’s going on with this thing.”

Loki stared. “It’s here? You brought it here?”

“It’s been reacting to the events.”

Jane looked from one to the other. “The Einstein-Rosen Bridges? What’s reacting to them?”

“That’s classified.”

Loki arched an eyebrow at Coulson before turning to Jane. “An artifact called the Tesseract that you may find most intriguing.” He turned his eyes forward as they walked, ignoring Jane’s pointed glances when the archer cut off her questions with a slight grip on her shoulder. He could almost feel it now, that blissful hum along his skin in the presence of magic. If he could harness it…

“There it is.” Coulson waved his arm. “Now, I think we’ve waited long enough for answers.”

Loki began to laugh. “Oh, yes. Yes, you have.” He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. The glowing blue cube sat upon a raised dais in the center of the open room, encased in glass. Tall machines hummed along the makeshift walls, and men and women clothed in those long white coats he had seen at the hospital peered at screens and charts while the air around the Tesseract crackled. He could _feel_ it. His eyes opened slowly, fixed on the source of unlimited energy before him, and it reached out toward him in a sudden flash of blue light. The humans stumbled back away from him as he was bathed in it, enveloped and surrounded by energy that recognized him, _knew_ him as not of this barren realm devoid of magic. It was as though he could suddenly see after being blinded, such was the overwhelming rush of power through his skin down to the core of his bones. He laughed again. It was impossible not to _revel_ in it.

When the light faded, Loki’s eyes focused slowly on the guns and arrow pointed at his chest and face. Small red dots of light danced across the white buttoned shirt. His gaze fixed on Jane, whose eyes were wide and jaw dropped.

“Oh. My. God.”

Loki grinned wide and spread his hands. “I am Loki, of Asgard.” His hands twisted sharply, and glowing spheres of pulsing green energy formed between his fingers. The joy of it nearly drove him to tears. He raised one hand toward the Tesseract and pushed forward, sending the beam toward the cube. Guns fired, and Loki raised his other hand in time to send the remaining energy shooting in a cocoon around him, incinerating the bullets. The arrow was still pointed between his eyes as the energy faded. The Tesseract was gone.

Coulson stepped forward and paced quickly around the glass. “What did you do with it?”

“I have moved it somewhere much safer than here. You parade this kind of power so openly and wonder then why it reacts. Not all beings from beyond this realm are quite so forgiving as I.”

Jane was still staring at him. “…So I was right. It was another set of constellations.”

“My constellations,” he said quietly, another pang shooting through him. They _had_ been his constellations. “The stars of Asgard. You were the first human to see them, Jane Foster.” His smile was smaller now, but somehow more genuine. “And I will help you see them again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of part 1. Part two (chapters 6-10) and part 3 (chapters 11-15) coming soon.


	6. Catalyst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of part 2.

  
_Eldir spake:_

_“Of their weapons they talk, and their might in war,_   
_The sons of the glorious gods;_   
_From the gods and elves who are gathered here_   
_No friend in words shalt thou find.”_

_–Lokasenna 2_   


_#  
_

_  
_“But you must do something in return for me.” Loki tilted his head, relishing the sensation of magic rolling through his blood while at once seeking to determine why it felt so… off.

“Yo, David Copperfield.” The archer’s aim never wavered. “Cut the magical mystery crap.”

His grin widened. “If I stopped your other weapons, what makes you believe that I won’t stop yours?”

“Nothing, but I’m not just gonna shoot once.”

“You’re under the impression that you can draw and fire more quickly than I can deflect your arrows.”

“Want to test that theory?”

“I don’t think this needs to escalate any further.” Coulson studied Loki quietly for a moment. “What did you do with the Tesseract?”

“I told you. I’ve moved it.”

“How?”

Loki straightened. “Something tells me you wouldn’t believe the truth.” Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. This sensation was new.

“Try me. I’m a very open-minded kind of guy.”

Loki arched an eyebrow as he paced across to the empty glass case, a nervous energy bubbling under his skin. “You haven’t the faintest idea of the power you were attempting to contain.”

“Enlighten me.”

“The Tesseract does not belong on this world, with your kind.”

“Who does it belong to?”

“My–” Loki forced his expression to remain neutral. “…King.”

“It belongs to your king.”

“Yes.”

“And who is that?”

“Odin, the Allfather. Ruler of Asgard.”

“So what was it doing on Earth?”

Loki turned to Jane, who seemed torn between staring at him and the space where the Tesseract had been. “Would you like your equipment and research materials returned to you, Jane Foster?”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Yeah, considering it’s mine.”

One corner of Loki’s mouth turned up. “If you would like answers, Agent Coulson, you will return what you have stolen.” He tilted his head at Jane. “And you will assist me.”

Jane’s brows furrowed. “With what?”

“That sounds an awful lot like a threat.” The archer smiled darkly. “I don’t like threats.”

Green energy swirled between his fingers again, and his heartbeat felt greater than it had before. Louder. “Lower your weapon.”

“You first, bright eyes.”

Loki flicked his eyes to Coulson. “The equipment.” He could feel sweat beading on his forehead and the back of his neck. “And the notebook.”

Coulson regarded him for half a moment. “Barton, stand down.”

“Sir, this guy–”

“Stand down, Agent Barton.” He waited until the bow was lowered before turning to Jane. “Dr. Foster, we’re going to need to debrief you.”

“Debrief me on what? You don’t have any idea what just happened!”

“We know a bit more than you think. Come with me, please.”

“No.” Loki blinked, the world beginning to spin around him. “Leave her… alone…” He stumbled, the energy beams flickering and dying as he grabbed frantically for a railing. He was given a wide berth as he shook his head. “…Enough.”

Coulson nodded at Barton. “Contain him.”

“It would be my genuine pleasure, sir.”

“Wait, what are you doing? Leave him alone! Hey! Get your hands off me!”

Loki squeezed his eyes closed and grit his teeth. His stomach heaved, and he held his breath. He would not lose his dignity. He’d done that quite enough since being hurled across the cosmos to this little speck. “Release her, or I’ll give you no answers,” he managed, sinking down to his knees.

“Not gonna give us any answers if you black out, princess, up and at ‘em.” Barton gripped under Loki’s arms to haul him to his feet, and Loki brought his elbow back hard into the man’s ribcage.

“Do _not_ touch me!”

Barton rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest, breathing heavily, then grinned and shook his head. “Oh, sweetie, on the first date?” His fist connected with the side of Loki’s head, and stars exploded in his vision. Loki grabbed his wrist and used his own momentum to flip him onto his back, but Barton hooked a leg around Loki’s shoulder as he sailed through the air. They both tumbled to the ground. Loki kicked out, his heel finding Barton’s jaw with a low crack. He grunted and moved away, and Loki pushed himself slowly to his feet as Barton closed his eyes and shoved his own jaw back into place with a loud crack, cursing. He shook his head as Loki gathered his feet under him. “I’m really gonna enjoy kicking your ass, space cadet.”

“Barton, stand down.”

He didn’t take his eyes from Loki for a second. “Coulson, you better be kidding me right now.”

“I said stand down. You three, contain him.”

Loki glared at Coulson. “If any of your men approach me, they will regret doing so.”

He blinked slowly at Loki, face expressionless. “You’re placing me in a difficult situation. I don’t like difficult situations.”

His breathing was painful now. What was wrong with him? With magic flowing through him again, he should be healing. He shouldn’t have taken such damage to begin with. “You will release that woman and return her belongings. Then, and only then, will I allow you to deal with me.”

“What’s your interest in Dr. Foster?”

One corner of Loki’s mouth turned up. “Have you never heard of the guest’s responsibility to his host? The laws of hospitality have indeed changed.”

“Contain him. Now. Release Dr. Foster.”

Jane jerked away from the agent holding her. “What about him? And my equipment?”

“Your work will be returned to you when we’re finished, and you don’t need to worry about him anymore.”

“This isn’t _legal_.”

“According to the Patriot Act, Dr. Foster, a lot of things are legal when it comes to protecting the safety and integrity of this nation, whether or not we like them. You’re free to go. Don’t come back here again.”

Loki looked up at her. “Go. Your work will be returned to you.”

Jane shook her head. “I’m calling the police.”

“This is well outside county and state jurisdiction.”

“Then I’ll call the media.”

“And tell them what, exactly?” Coulson turned toward her at last, shrugging. “Who’s going to believe you? It might not seem like it right now, but we’re the good guys.”

“How is this good?” She waved her hand at Loki. “How is this even remotely good? You stole my equipment, kidnapped him outside a diner, I still haven’t seen a warrant, and now your thug’s beating him up?”

“Hey!” Barton wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “I resent that.”

“And I resent you coming in here like the secret police,” she snapped. “You attacked him!”

“My jaw’s gonna pop for the rest of my life, Dr. Foster.” He closed the distance between them and pointed at Loki. “Far as I’m concerned, Captain Invasion of the Body Snatchers over here is priority number one on the Threats to National Security list.”

“Why, because an Einstein-Rosen Bridge event just _happened_ to coincide with an energy spike from an unidentified, probably extraterrestrial energy source? That seems odd to you? Energy reacts!”

“The energy didn’t react to that event, it reacted to _him_.”

“And anything that you don’t understand is a threat, right?” Jane’s voice was rising. “That’s what science is! You want to lock up every astrophysicist on the planet now because you can’t explain a black hole?”

“Barton, I said stand down. Dr. Foster, you need to leave.”

“What I want is to keep a goddamn _alien_ under observation until we know what the hell he’s doing here. Either that, or put an arrow between his eyes, and then it’s problem solved.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, that’s diplomatic. I have my constitutional rights!”

“He doesn’t! He’s not an American! He’s not even human!”

“So that means you can treat him however you want?”

“Are we even in the same _room_ right now, Foster?”

“Enough!” Loki shoved himself to his feet and swayed. “I am a god, you dull creature, and if I consent to your questions, it is because I choose to do so.”

“Really, princess? Because you’re not looking so good right about now. How about we go another round?”

“I said _stand down, Clint_.” Coulson turned his head, and Barton’s mouth snapped shut. “This is over. I want readings on whatever just happened in here, and I want them within the next five minutes. You, Dr. Foster, need to go home. Whether or not you’re escorted out of here is your choice.”

Loki blinked and swallowed. “The Tesseract.”

“What about the Tesseract?”

“The Tesseract is the problem, Agent Coulson.” Loki swayed again, his knuckles turning white where he gripped the railing. “It is not merely an energy source.”

“Then what is it?”

“One of a kind. Something too powerful for you to understand.”

Jane studied him for a minute. “Is that what’s making you sick?”

He laughed breathlessly. “A voice of reason. It is what’s currently making us all sick, to some extent. Power like this is meant to be contained by means which this realm is not yet capable of.”

“So this is some sort of feedback from the Tesseract.”

“I believe so. I have seen it before with other, less powerful artifacts. The rush of energy can alter perception and judgment.”

Jane nodded. “And you said it woke up because it recognized you.”

“Yes, I…” His knees buckled.

“What’s happening to you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. This body isn’t meant for…” His eyes closed slowly. “This is still a mortal body. It isn’t capable of containing that level of power.” His stomach rolled again. “I need… need to sleep…”

“Get him to–”

“I’m taking him. Unless you want to deal with a kidnapping charge when my colleagues report me missing, back off.” Jane guided his arm around her shoulders, and he shivered.

“You will have the answers I promised you,” he mumbled, leaning on her far more than he wished to in order to regain his footing.

“We need to know where you put the Tesseract, Loki.”

“I have hidden it, Agent Coulson.” He gave him a small smile. “Until Jane Foster’s equipment is returned, that is all you will ever know.”

Jane raised both eyebrows. “The government makes deals all the time. This guy isn’t exactly a terrorist.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t know that for sure, Dr. Foster.”

“If he was a threat, why hasn’t he killed me?”

“Because he needs you for something.” Coulson locked his gaze on Loki. “You haven’t given me a lot of options, but I’m going to be watching you.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

“Dr. Foster’s work will be returned after you’re well enough to sit through an interview to answer some of our questions.”

Jane tilted her head. “An interview or an interrogation?”

“Jane.” Loki looked down at her. “Leave this be.”

She looked as though she was about to argue but thought better of it. “You’re getting some sleep, and then you’re getting some food. And I’m still cashing that check,” she said to Coulson, who only nodded.

Several agents escorted them out of the building to the Jeep, and Loki managed to remain awake as he climbed into the passenger’s seat. Jane slid the key into the ignition and rested her head on the steering wheel, breathing deeply. “Oh my God. That just happened. Oh my God.”

He smiled as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “You are unaccustomed to talking your way out of imprisonment, I take it.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Sadly, no.”

“That wasn’t exactly talking your way out of it so much as threatening people.”

“My silver tongue seems a bit heavy of late.” He licked his lips. “A preoccupied mind and a weary body.”

“Why _are_ you having this kind of reaction?”

“I wish that I knew. It is connected to the Tesseract, and that is all I can be certain of. Part of it is the magic consuming more energy than this form is capable of sustaining without damage.”

“Magic.”

“Yes, magic.” He rolled his head to the side to look at her. “What is magic but a force of power you have not yet found another name for? What is it that ignites fire?”

“Well, energy and–”

“Jane. Stop.” He blinked slowly. “Some things cannot be explained so quickly. A rush to explain prevents the acquisition of new knowledge.” He turned his hand over and lit a small green flame over his palm. He was gripping the edge of the seat with his other hand, but she couldn’t see that. She didn’t have to know.

“How did…” She brought her face closer to the fire. “There’s no fuel source.”

“There is no fuel source for many things, merely various elements reacting with one another. The fluttering of a heart at a first kiss, the boiling of the blood at an insult, the hollowness of fear. Emotion cannot be quantified. Neither can magic.” He extinguished the flame and closed his eyes again. “At least, not to my knowledge. Not in my world. It simply is.” He found himself smiling. “I’m rarely this forthcoming. You should perhaps ask your questions now as we leave this place.”

“You going to fall asleep on me?”

“If I do, I assure you that it is against my will.”


	7. Conflicted

  
_Eldir spake:_

_"If in thou goest | to Ægir's hall,_  
 _And fain the feast wouldst see,_  
 _And with slander and spite | wouldst sprinkle the gods,_  
 _Think well lest they wipe it on thee."_

_–Lokasenna 4_  


_#  
_

_  
_Jane was finding it increasingly difficult to focus on driving instead of Loki, who jerked awake with a soft grunt every time she veered off the road. She tightened her hands on the wheel and stared straight ahead.

“You find me strange,” Loki said softly.

“Yes.”

There was a quiet sound that might have been a laugh or a sigh. “Good strange or bad strange?”

“I’m not quite sure yet.”

“That makes two of us.”

She kept her mouth shut for as long as possible, which was only about a minute and a half. “Who _are_ you? Really?”

“What sort of answer are you looking for, Jane? My name? My title? My species?”

“All of the above? Well, I got the name. Loki of Asgard.”

“Just Loki.”

Her brows drew together. “You said titles.”

“Pardon?”

“When you asked what kind of answer I wanted, you said names and titles.” She took her eyes off the road to look at him. “That means you have titles?”

Loki reached over her to grip the wheel and jerk the car back onto the road. “I misspoke.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Would you kindly keep us on the road, Jane?” He sank back into the seat and turned away from her to look out the window. “Whoever informed you that you were qualified to operate these types of vehicles was disappointingly optimistic.”

“Excuse me?”

He rolled his head back to her and blinked slowly. “Attempting to flatten me with one of these things was quite enough. Kindly avoid crashing us into something or someone else.” He returned his attention to the window. “I don’t care to speak anymore.”

Jane shook her head. “You’re kind of an ass, aren’t you?

There was silence, then quiet snickering. “Yes, I suppose I am. To answer your rather complicated question, I am the being that your Vikings named the god of mischief some thousand years ago or more.” His eyes narrowed. “I think it was a thousand years ago. Maybe more. Your years don’t last as long as ours.”

“And you’re from Asgard?”

“Yes.”

“Is that the name of your planet?”

“It is the name of my realm.” He rapped a knuckle gently on the window. “Stop and allow me to get out. I’ll attempt to demonstrate.”

“My driving’s bothering you that much?”

“Yes, but I was thinking that I could make a quick sketch on the ground rather than attempt to conjure an image that would both exhaust me and distract you, which might end in our painful and untimely deaths.” One of his eyebrows arched, and Jane couldn’t help but grin.

“Guess I’m not really paying attention today, huh?”

“If this is you at your full attention, I shudder to think of you distracted.”

Jane pulled the Jeep over as gently as possible and unlocked the doors. Loki climbed out and landed nimbly while she fumbled with the key in the ignition. She was going to learn something nobody’d talked about since the Viking Age, maybe not even then. It went so far beyond her research, so far beyond anything she’d hoped to discover when she’d started studying the atmospheric events out here in the middle of the desert…

“This is your realm, here.” Loki traced a circle in the ground with his toe. “You call it Earth. We call it Midgard. It is one of the nine realms within the World Tree, which we call Yggdrasil. Asgard is here.” He moved carefully around an increasingly complicated sketch, and Jane couldn’t help but think of a ballet dancer as she studied the lines and circles. “Asgard is the strongest of the nine, and serves as its protector. This section is Nornheim, where the Norns reside. They’re a separate people from the Aesir entirely, what you’d call the Fates.”

“What are the other realms?”

Loki tapped the ground with his toe. “This is Vanaheim. In Viking mythology, the Vanir are gods, just as the Aesir of Asgard, but lesser than the Aesir gods. We warred with them once, but we are at peace now. Powerful warriors and sorcerers, the Vanir. Here is Alfheim, and Svartalfheim. Alfheim is the realm of the light elves, with whom I suppose we are technically at peace. Dark elves and dwarves live in Svartalfheim. The dwarves live in this section, called Nidavellir. Here is Muspelheim, realm of the fire giants, and Niflheim, a realm of ice and darkness where live the ice giants and other such monsters. Helheim is here, where live creatures of blackness and terror. The Vikings believed this to be the land of the dead. It’s a place of unspeakable horrors. The dead don’t go to Helheim, but the things that live there defy any natural order that even I can explain, and the beings there are called Náir. They may as well be the dead as far as I’m concerned. The capital is a place called Nastrond. According to your Vikings, the dragon Nidhoggr who chewed on the roots of the world tree lived there and sucked on corpses.” His eyebrow arched. “There aren’t roots for Nidhoggr to chew, as far as I know, but he does tend to eat the dead. Rather unsettling beast.”

Jane shuddered, then pointed. “What’s that one?”

Loki drew a shallow breath. “Jotunheim, the realm of the frost giants.”

She waited for Loki to continue, but when she looked up at him, he was watching her quietly. “That’s it? No big story? Just ‘the frost giants live here?’”

“What else would you like me to say about them?”

She shrugged. “Good question.”

Loki dragged his shoe across the lines, then moved back to the Jeep. “Shall we, Jane?” He climbed inside without waiting for her answer.

 

_#_

 

“War is inevitable, my king, that’s why we must strike first!”

“And what, Hermod, send our troops into Jotunheim to freeze to death?”

“So we should just sit here and wait for the frost giants to gather a larger army? This will be like the battle of Midgard all over again!”

“There’s a difference between bravery and stupidity, you fool.”

“And what would you do, Bragi, just sit here and wait? What songs can be written about waiting for the Jotnar armies to attack?”

“Enough!” Thor scrubbed his hand down his face and sank back into the high-backed chair, Mjolnir on the floor between his feet. “Enough, please. I need to think.”

Fandral raised an eyebrow at Volstagg, then turned to the assembly. “That means ‘go,’ dear lords and ladies! The king has a great deal of business to attend to, and appreciates the generous offer of your time so much that he’s pledged to give such careful consideration to your words as you gave to your speeches. Thank you, thank you! Yes, there we are, off you go!” Volstagg gave each of the parting assembly a smile as warm as Fandral’s, and the two of them closed the heavy doors as soon as the last cloak and boot had crossed the threshold of the council room. Fandral shook his head. “I don’t remember them being quite that verbose.”

“That’s because you usually entertain their daughters.”

Fandral tapped his finger against his lips. “…True. That _would_ explain why this meeting was so much more boring than usual.” He glanced at Thor. “Oh, cheer up, it isn’t that bad.”

Thor looked up at him between his fingers. “Isn’t that bad? Explain to me how this isn’t that bad.” Fandral’s mouth opened and closed several times, and Volstagg tapped his fingers on his stomach. Thor shook his head. “I thought so.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Loki would be able to decipher this mess.”

Hogun pressed his lips together and crossed to the door to study the lock. Sif shook her head. “You can do this without Loki, Thor.”

“How can I?”

“It’s what you’ve been training for.”

“I always thought Loki would be here to help me.”

“Well, he’s not, and that’s entirely of his own doing.”

“Sif, I warn you…”

Hogun straightened and looked from Thor to Sif with narrowed eyes. “None of this is helping. We need to deal with Jotunheim before we do anything else.”

Fandral’s eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline. “Our silent yet prickly friend has a point. We need to focus on the task at hand, not how many people suddenly want to have your ear.”

“They’re all going to have their own agendas,” Volstagg added, nodding. “We need to look at this the way we’ve always done. What’s right and what’s wrong?”

Thor sighed through his nose. “It isn’t that simple anymore.”

“Isn’t it?” Sif turned one of the chairs around and straddled the back, leaning against it and holding his eyes. “Thor, you might’ve made mistakes just like the rest of us, but you know what’s right and wrong. We’ve always trusted you for a reason.”

“The last time you all trusted me, we ended in Jotunheim and started a war.”

“The last time we trusted you, we got out of Jotunheim alive,” Hogun interrupted. “You are still Thor, king or not.”

Fandral blinked. “…I didn’t know you had that in you. You’ve been holding out on us.”

“But he’s right, Thor,” Volstagg said. “We trust you. We always have!”

Fandral gave Hogun a final look with narrowed eyes before turning to Thor with a sharp nod. “That’s right. We’re your friends, and like it or no, you’re our king now.”

“You’re not alone in this.” Sif reached for his hand, and Thor didn’t stop her. “Even if Loki isn’t here, we are.”

Thor locked his gaze on hers, voice a low rumble. “And you think you can replace him?”

Sif jerked her hand back. “No, that isn’t what we said at all.”

“But you still think this is Loki’s doing.”

Sif pushed away from the chair as Thor stood and closed the distance between them, standing nearly toe to toe, and she had to incline her head slightly to meet his eyes. “Thor, whether you and I agree on Loki’s character or not, the truths that we’re facing right now are putting your people in danger of war. We have a real threat to face, the Allfather is in the Odinsleep for who knows how long, and your brother isn’t here. It’s just us here with you, and you have to put your own feelings aside and do what’s best for the realm whether you feel up to it or not. You’re our king now, and if you don’t make these decisions, who do you think is going to?”

“How dare you speak to me that way?”

“How dare I? I dare because I’m not wounded deeply enough to miss the Jotun threat scratching at the borders of this realm, and if you can’t do what needs to be done, be a king in name only and let the four of us keep Asgard safe until you’re ready to crawl out of that little cave of self-pity you’ve buried yourself in!”

Thor set his jaw and looked over Sif’s head at his friends. Fandral let out a low whistle, and Volstagg shifted uneasily. Only Hogun was able to look at him without flinching, but only for a moment before he turned his head away. He looked at Sif once more and let his breath out slowly. “You’re right.”

“And you… wait, I’m right?” She blinked. “…Right, of course I’m… right.”

“Well done, Sif,” Fandral murmured.


	8. Coalescence

  
_Bragi spake:_

_“A horse and a sword from my hoard will I give,_   
_And a ring gives Bragi to boot,_   
_That hatred thou makst not among the gods;_   
_So rouse not the great ones to wrath."_

_–Lokasenna 12_   


_#  
_

 

The more he reflected on it, the more he could see himself in his estranged and forgotten son. Distanced as they were from Asgard, there were still travelers from other realms who passed by Jotunheim from time to time and shared news. The dark son of Asgard, the magician and trickster, was not the picture of an Asgardian prince. He was manipulative, mischievous, and if the rumors were true, envious of the golden heir with his mighty Mjolnir. Loki had, apparently, never felt as though he belonged in Asgard.

Well, what a sweet irony this was.

Laufey scanned the assembled soldiers with a critical gaze, unable to keep the smirk from tugging at the corner of his mouth. “One of you will sacrifice your life for this realm. Two of you will enter Asgard through the secret doorways shown to us by our friend. One of you will die so that the other can return with the answers I seek.” His eyes narrowed. “Now, which of you will serve your king with your death?”

There was a low murmuring for several long moments before two soldiers stepped forward from their lines, both of them seasoned warriors who had long shown loyalty. Laufey recognized them and nodded, then locked eyes with the young soldier standing to their right.

“You. Why would you not sacrifice yourself for your king?”

The man swallowed hard. “I… my king, I…”

“Kill him.” Laufey’s expression never changed, and the two soldiers who had stepped forward formed long ice spears over their arms and stabbed the soldier repeatedly. Laufey’s voice carried over the sounds of the execution. “If you will not serve your realm and your king, you do not deserve to live in it under my protection. Your lives, and your deaths, are mine.” He turned to the two soldiers who stepped forward. “You will join my personal guard, and you will choose two soldiers to go to Asgard. I will expect you in my war room by sunset.”

 

_#_

_  
_Loki’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the edges of the bowl and heaved again, his empty stomach producing nothing but blood. Darcy had stopped looking shocked long enough to explain how this toilet device worked before he’d shoved her out of the bathroom and slammed the door in her bewildered face. A thin sheen of sweat covered his brow, chills so severe his hands were shaking. He closed the lid and flushed, then rested his elbows on the porcelain and cradled his face in his hands. What was _wrong_ with him?

“He’s been in there for a half hour, Jane.”

“He’s fine. I’m trying to write this down before–”

“Jane! Seriously?”

Loki closed his eyes and swallowed. The last thing he needed was to be seen like this, especially when he didn’t even know why he was like this in the first place. He could only speculate, and a lack of solid answers combined with being surrounded by an alien people with their awful little lightning boxes was enough to make him ill without the aid of whatever the Tesseract was doing to him. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his sternum and shifted to sit on the seat cover.

The knock was tentative. “…Loki? Hey, um, you okay in there?”

He closed his eyes. “I am fine, Jane, please return to your work.”

There was a pause for a few heartbeats. “You don’t sound fine.”

“You have little basis for comparison. That’s hardly sound science.”

“Well… yeah, point, but…”

“You do not need to waste time checking on me. You have work to do that doesn’t need additional disruptions.”

The pause was longer this time. “…Is it safe to come in?”

“Safe? Why would it be unsafe?”

“I don’t…” The frustrated sound she made against the door pulled an abrupt laugh from him. “…Is it okay if I come in?”

He rose and gripped the edges of the sink. “In a moment.” Loki turned the small metal handles until the water spurting from the faucet was just barely cool to the touch and cupped his hands to splash it onto his face. He rinsed his mouth as thoroughly as he could and patted his face dry with a soft, worn hand towel covered in a faded floral motif. “Come in,” he said quietly, bunching the towel in his hands as he sank back down onto the toilet seat.

Jane opened the door and slipped inside, her brows furrowing as she looked him over. “…Wow, you’re really not doing so hot.”

He gave her a weak smile. “Apparently not.”

She perched on the edge of the tub, carefully arranging her legs so that their knees wouldn’t touch. “Do you have any idea why?”

“Several of them, actually, and none of them pleasant.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I can help?”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “I will give you what answers I can in exchange for your help, then?”

“No! I mean, well, if you want to give me answers, that’s fantastic, but that’s not… Loki, I’m not offering to help you so I can get something out of it.”

His grin widened. “When we visited Midgard before, in those early days, humans considered us gods. They gave us prayers and offerings in exchange for blessings or to avoid incurring our wrath.”

Her eyebrow arched. “I’m not worshipping you as a god.”

He pressed his lips together. “I wouldn’t be averse to it.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

He snorted. “Pity, I do enjoy being worshipped.”

“Uh huh.” The smile warmed her expression considerably. “You can’t be feeling that bad if you’re making jokes.”

“Who said I was joking?”

“The idea of me worshipping you is a joke.”

“So insolent.”

“Am I incurring your wrath?”

“You might be.” He smiled and shook his head. “The Tesseract’s magic is not my own. I can use it, but at a price.”

“That price being how sick you’re feeling.”

“The sickness, I believe, is my mortal form wearing down. Human bodies are not designed to recover as quickly as ours.”

“So this isn’t your real body.”

“Well, it is my body, and it isn’t.”

“Schrödinger’s body.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind.”

He smiled and settled back against the toilet’s tank. “No, now I’m curious. I’m stuck on Earth, I may as well learn more about it. What is Schrödinger’s body?”

Her breath came out in something caught between a sigh and a laugh, and she smiled as she spoke. “Schrödinger was a physicist who was born a little over a hundred years ago.”

“He does not still live?”

“No, he died in 1961.”

His eyes narrowed. “Wait, physicist… is that what Erik Selvig called you?”

Her grin brightened. “Yeah, I’m a physicist. Well, I’m an astrophysicist. A physicist studies a branch of science we call physics, which is the study of matter and how it moves through time and space.”

“And you study how matter moves through the universe.”

“Yes, I do.” Her eyes were warmer. “So, Schrödinger developed this thought experiment that explained how a cat could be alive and dead at the same time.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed, and as he leaned forward, his knee brushed against the inside of her thigh briefly. “How is that possible?”

Slight color rose in her cheeks, but she held his gaze and continued. “In the thought experiment, a cat is sealed in this metal box with a flask full of poison and a source of radiation, and a Geiger counter. A Geiger counter detects radioactivity, so in the experiment, the flask of poison would be shattered if the atoms…” She shook her head slowly. “You don’t know what this means, do you?”

“I’m not familiar with the terms radiation and Geiger counter.”

She held out her hands. “All matter in the universe is made up of atoms. Atoms are these particles that are too small to see with the naked eye. Atoms can become unstable for any number of reasons, and when that happens, they can begin to decay, and they lose energy by releasing what we call particles of ionizing radiation. Radiation can be harmful to living things in high enough doses. It’s something that occurs naturally in the universe, but you can also create radiation.”

Loki nodded slowly. “And this Geiger counter measures this release of energy.”

“Right. So, in Schrödinger’s thought experiment, the Geiger counter is hooked up to a device that’ll destroy the flask holding the poison if it detects any radiation, and that would kill the cat. Radioactive decay may or may not happen, so the Geiger counter may or may not detect that energy and then trigger the mechanism to destroy the flask.”

“So the cat may or may not be alive.”

“Right, and the only way to know is–”

“Is to open the metal box, so theoretically, the cat exists in the states of life and death simultaneously until the box is opened because one cannot observe whether it lived or died while the box was sealed.”

Jane blinked and grinned. “…That’s… exactly right, yes.”

His eyes widened, and he stared at her. “Schrödinger’s body. My body is and is not mine.”

“Well, until you open the box, but I wouldn’t suggest–”

Loki cut her off by grabbing her face in both hands and pressing a swift kiss to her lips. “You are brilliant.” He stood quickly and strode out of the bathroom. “I need a horse.”

Darcy’s eyebrows shot up nearly to her hairline. “You need a what now?”

“Or whatever manner of transportation you people use.”

“That’d be a car.”

“That is what you call the thing I was struck with.”

“Yeah, Jane hit you with a car.”

Jane walked slowly out of the bathroom, blinking dazedly. Loki tilted his head. “Are you capable of using a car? I would rather not hit anyone else on the way.”

“Yeah, I can drive.”

“Then we leave at once.”

Darcy pointed at a lit screen. “But _Big Brother_ just started.”

Jane shook herself. “Where are we going?”

Loki grinned, feeling more like himself than he had since before they’d left for Jotunheim. “We are going to open the box.”

 

_#_

 

The Jotun soldier made not a sound as the darkness pressed in around him in a thick chill that struck even the Frost Giant with its implacable cold. The secret ways between the realms were indeed secret for a reason. Nothingness was a living thing here that reached deep within the body to scoop the breath from the lungs and smother heartbeats like a heavy pillow pressed over the nose and mouth. He stumbled and grabbed for something, anything, but there was only that blackness, and one could not get hold of Nothingness.

Rough hands hauled him into the familiar ice and snow, and the soldier nearly wept. Laufey’s voice was a distant echo, and it took several slaps across the face to bring him back from that terrible Nothingness enough to hear the words of his king.

“Tell me what you’ve learned.”

His voice was cracked and shallow. “Loki… Loki is on Midgard. A mortal. The… Allfather fell… fell into the Odinsleep.” He coughed, and blood thickened and turned black spilled out of his mouth.

Laufey curled his lip and turned the dying soldier onto his back. The wound in his stomach was wide enough to stick his fist into. Whatever Aesir had caught him would pay, in time. Laufey turned his gaze toward the cosmos. He would be seeing his son soon.


	9. Conference

_Bragi spake:_

"Now were I without as I am within,  
And here in Ægir's hall,  
Thine head would I bear in mine hands away,  
And pay thee the price of thy lies."

–Lokasenna 14

_#  
_

_  
_“How did it happen _again?_ ” Thor gripped the back of his neck and turned around, searching the faces of his friends for answers that they didn’t have. Only one person had those answers, and he was on Midgard.

“Heimdall didn’t see them until it was too late.” Fandral wiped the blood from his sword with the edge of a kitchen towel.

“What in Odin’s name were they doing in here?”

Hogun looked at Volstagg with raised eyebrows. “Listening. We didn’t get here right away. Why else would they be in the kitchens?”

Fandral shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, the fruit tart is rather good.”

Sif shook her head and paced around the Jotun’s body. “They were able to get here without aid. They could breach Asgard’s defenses at any time and we wouldn’t know until they were already here.” She looked at Thor with a soft sigh. “We need–”

“I want to know what they overheard,” Thor snapped. “Where have the staff all gone?”

“Probably back to their rooms.” Fandral shook his head. “The poor dears were frightened off.”

“I need answers. Find them.”

Volstagg licked his lips. “My friend, if I may…” He cleared his throat. “With all due respect, my king, perhaps we three should question the staff while you and Lady Sif speak with Lord Heimdall.”

“What he’s saying, Thor, is that you running around shouting at everyone isn’t going to help the situation.” Fandral met his eyes with a small shake of his head. “We all want answers as much as you, but you’re our king now. You can’t allow anger to get the best of you. Not now. We need you to be better than that.”

Thor closed his eyes and drew several deep breaths. “I will go speak to Heimdall.”

“And I’m coming with you.” Sif put a hand on his shoulder and spun him around. “Even if it’s only to keep you and Heimdall from shouting at each other.” She shoved him gently into the hallway and caught the attention of the nearest guard. “Would you saddle a horse for the king and myself, please.” The guard nodded smartly and headed in the direction of the stables, and Sif tugged Thor’s arm.

“Where are we going?”

“To speak to your mother.”

“My mother is at my father’s bedside–”

“And is still the queen of this realm, Thor. Even if she wasn’t, she’s your mother, and I’m not about to say what needs to be said without someone there you’ll actually listen to.”

Thor scrubbed his hand over his beard. “I really have been a boar, haven’t I?”

“You’ve been an ass.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And if you so much as think at me that you’re still my king, I’ll throw the last shreds of decorum right out the window and hit you, do you understand me?”

“And my mother thought we’d be a good match for each other,” he grumbled.

“Of course we are. Who else is going to threaten the king of Asgard with violence?” She grinned, but the smile faded quickly. “I’m not trying to play the queen, Thor. I’m a warrior of Asgard, and I’m trying to do what’s best for the realm. That includes remaining a friend to the king, no matter what else happens.” She met his eyes. “We’ve trusted each other since we were children. All else aside, we’re still friends, aren’t we?”

His brows furrowed. “Of course we are.”

“Good.” She let her breath out slowly. “Good. Remember that when I yell at you.”

 

_#_

 

“There now, my dear one, it’s all right.” Fandral caught the tear sliding down the girl’s cheek on his knuckle, voice low. “Don’t cry. You’re safe.”

She hiccuped and swallowed. “But they came right in and we didn’t even see…”

“I know, I know, but you’re safe now.”

“What about next time? What if you three don’t get here in time and–”

“I will find a way to have a guard in here with you if it’ll make you feel better. Don’t cry, sweet one.” He gave her a warm smile. “Dry those pretty eyes. We’ll discover what the Jotuns are up to and we’ll stop them. I promise. The best way for us to do that is for you to tell us what they heard you talking about.”

Across the kitchen, Volstagg was shaking his head. “You’re not going to get into trouble, lass, just tell me what you think the Jotun’s might’ve heard, and we’ll tell the king.” The cook wrung his hands and shook his head, and Volstagg gripped his shoulder gently. “Come, now. It’s going to be all right.”

“Went how many years without seeing a threat inside Asgard, now it’s the Frost Giants come twice in how many days?”

“That’s why we need to find answers for the king, and then we’ll speak with Heimdall and make sure our borders are secure.”

“I don’t know, Volstagg. Things aren’t like they used to be. First the Frost Giants get inside, then one of the princes disappears to Midgard, the Allfather in the Odinsleep…”

Hogun stood outside the kitchen and looked from one guard to the other as they spoke. “We didn’t hear anyone. I have no idea how they got into the palace.”

“This is just like what happened at the coronation.”

“Yes, but the kitchens? The weapons vault made sense. What, is Laufey forgetting to feed his men?”

Hogun held up his hand. “That doesn’t help us figure out where they came in. Come with me to do a sweep of the palace, and then we report to King Thor.”

 

_#_

 

Frigga’s hand moved in slow circles across Thor’s back. “Asgard will endure. It always has. I have every faith in you, Thor.”

Thor shook his head. “I was never supposed to do this alone.”

“You’re not alone, my son.” She pulled him into a tight embrace. “You are never alone.”

He gripped Frigga tightly and closed his eyes. “Father sleeps, you’re here looking after him, and Loki…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “And I am cruel to my friends when I need them most.” He looked at Sif over Frigga’s shoulder. “I am sorry.”

Sif took a tentative step forward. “If I may.”

Frigga gave Sif a gentle smile. “Always, you know that.”

Sif cleared her throat and took a deep breath, visibly steeling herself. “We need Loki.”

Thor stared at her, then closed his mouth and shook his head. “After all the times you tried telling me that he can’t be trusted, that he’s done all this…”

“My opinions of Loki’s trustworthiness haven’t changed,” she said carefully, flicking her eyes to Frigga. “I am sorry, my queen, but as a soldier of the realm, I can’t ignore what he’s done.”

“Nor should you, Sif.” Frigga nodded. “Continue, please.”

“But the truth is, only Loki knows how the Frost Giants are coming into Asgard. If they’re able to sneak through our borders without Heimdall being able to see them, we’re all in danger. We need Loki to show us the secret pathways between the realms, or Asgard is vulnerable.”

“And if you’re so convinced that Loki betrayed this realm, why would you trust him to reveal his secrets to us now?” Thor stood and walked slowly across the room, hands clenching into fists.

“What other choice do we have, Thor?” Sif’s voice was low. “And if you didn’t fear Loki’s loyalties, you’d leap at the opportunity to bring him home instead of questioning it. You cannot pin this all on me.”

Frigga let her breath out slowly. “Much as it pains me to say it, you are both right. It is dangerous to bring Loki back to Asgard, and yet we need his knowledge.”

“Unless you can find these hidden pathways, my queen?”

“I cannot. I’ve tried, but Loki’s power is different from mine.” She closed her eyes and stiffened slightly. “It may even be that these pathways would be open to Jotnar and not Æsir, and thus hidden from our eyes but not his.”

Sif swallowed and looked down at her boots until she could no longer taste her heartbeat in her throat. “So Heimdall may not even be able to see them if Loki showed him.”

“It’s impossible to say, Sif.”

“Then what are we to do?”

“Loki would know what to do.” Thor stared at the ceiling, throat working.

Sif shook her head. “Thor…”

“No, Sif, listen to me. Loki would know what to do. He’s always been able to think his way out of situations like this.” He faced Sif and Frigga, and it seemed that he stood a little taller than he had for the past few days. “We’ve all gotten ourselves into messes, but we’ve all fought our way out. Loki doesn’t. Remember Nornheim? Loki and I spoke of it before the coronation, of how he veiled us in smoke to ease our escape.” His eyes narrowed. “Loki always had a plan in case something went wrong, and he’s always been able to think on his feet. If Loki could get us out of this, then we need to think like Loki.”

Sif nodded slowly. “All the tactics and strategies in the cosmos won’t help us without thinking this through.”

“And strength will mean nothing if we can’t figure out how to use it.”

Frigga’s lips pressed together. “I’m a bit relieved that you’re not going to try to save Asgard by smashing things.”

Thor shrugged. “Well, I might still smash things.” He grinned, and Frigga’s eyes brightened.

“It’s good to see you smile, Thor.”

 

_#_

 

Thor and Sif arrived at Heimdall’s observatory as the Warriors Three were dismounting. “What news,” Thor asked, swinging his leg over the saddle and leaping to the ground.

“From what we’ve been able to gather, the Frost Giants know that your father is deep in the Odinsleep and Loki is on Midgard.” Fandral turned to Volstagg, who nodded.

“And it seems that there were two of them, as we suspected, but one of them looks to have sacrificed himself so the other could escape.”

Hogun nodded. “There are no visible breaches in the palace walls, so they entered through magic.”

“Through stealth,” Heimdall said, and the five hurried toward his voice inside the observatory. The golden eyes remained fixed on the great expanse of the universe before them. “I was not able to see them until they had already entered Asgard.”

Sif narrowed her eyes. “This was a reconnaissance mission, then, and what better way to learn the secrets of the realm than to listen for the gossip within the palace?”

Fandral crossed his arms over his chest. “That certainly doesn’t bode well.”

“We need to think like Loki,” Thor said, eyes fixed on Heimdall. “He always covered his tracks. There was always a plan beneath the plan.”

Hogun nodded once. “There was always an escape route.”

“And always a way to make sure he was in control,” Sif added.

Thor studied Heimdall’s face carefully. “In order for Loki to be in control, he had to know things about these secret pathways that even the Jotuns never discovered.”

“And they could be secret pathways only visible through Jotun magic,” Heimdall said quietly, the piercing gaze turning to Thor at last. “Ways that even my eyes could not see.”

Thor nodded. “But there had to be something that the Jotuns couldn’t see, either. Something only Loki could see. A way for him to show the Jotuns the path without being discovered.”

Volstagg straightened. “If Loki didn’t know he was a Jotun then, it’d be Æsir magic, and Heimdall could see that! Couldn’t you?”

Thor narrowed his eyes. “Heimdall, don’t look for the pathways themselves. Look for the shadows around them.”

Fandral’s eyes widened. “The places Loki would conceal himself.”

Heimdall looked out toward the universe again. “Folds in the cosmos can be made with a great expanse of energy.”

“That’s how Loki teleported,” Hogun said.

Heimdall nodded slightly. “As bringing together two portions of the same cloth.”

Thor’s mouth turned up. “So don’t look for where the fabric is touching, just look for the folds.”

“And they would be near to Jotunheim as well.” Heimdall’s eyes narrowed, then widened as a sudden flash of blue light pierced through the blackness. Thor’s hand immediately went to Mjolnir’s handle.

“What was that?”

“That was Loki, and we were not the only ones to see it.”

Fandral’s hand flew to his sword hilt. “The Frost Giants.”

Sif looked at Volstagg and Hogun. “They already know Loki’s on Midgard. They’ll know that was him.”

Hogun’s jaw tightened. “Was that a beacon for us or for them?”

“There’s only one way to know.” Thor spun Mjolnir at his side. “Heimdall, open the Bifrost.”


	10. Confession

_Ithun spake:_

_"Well, prithee, Bragi, his kinship weigh,_  
Since chosen as wish-son he was;  
And speak not to Loki such words of spite  
Here within Ægir's hall." 

_–Lokasenna 16_

_#_

 

“What is it?”

“It’s a… well, I’m not sure what’s in it.”

“It’s a protein bar,” Darcy said, poking her head between the seats, shoving Erik to one side with a grunt. “They make ‘em for people who are working out a lot and people like Jane who forget to eat.”

“I don’t forget to eat.”

“When was the last meal you had?”

“…At the diner, but…”

“Snacks when I’m shoving them in your face don’t count.”

“Yes they do. I’m ingesting nutrients, and that’s the point.”

Loki unwrapped the bar and took a tentative bite. “It tastes… strange.”

Jane pressed her lips together and nodded. “It’s supposed to. You’ll get used to it. I’m just worried that you haven’t been able to keep anything down, and if your body’s expending energy that much, you need to try to get something in your system.”

Loki took another bite and chewed thoughtfully, shaking the bottle in his hand. “Is that why you gave me blue water?”

“It has electrolytes in it. You could dehydrate, with the way your body’s been stressed.”

He arched an eyebrow as he cracked the seal on the cap. “And you intend to feed me into wellness.”

Jane kept her eyes on the road as she smiled. “Well, if it works.”

“I do appreciate the concern, from all of you.” He sniffed at the bottle and frowned. “This… isn’t going to be like the incident with the Pop-Tarts, is it?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you have a ‘delicate palate.’” Darcy hooked her fingers in the air and rolled her eyes.

Jane took her eyes off the road for a moment to meet his. “Please, Loki. I know this isn’t the ideal meal, but if you’re going to be out there experimenting with the Tesseract, what are you going to do if your body gives out because it’s exhausted?”

Darcy prodded Jane’s arm. “Remember that next time your notes are blurring together because you’ve been surviving on bananas and old coffee.”

Jane blinked and looked at the road again. “I like bananas.”

Loki grinned and forced several gulps of the blue water down, and by the time the protein bar was gone, he had to admit that he was feeling better. “You are aware that we are being followed.”

Darcy spun around, and Jane rolled her eyes. “Well, if _that_ didn’t tip them off, Darce…”

“Whoa, hold up. We’re leading the _feds_ to the magic cube o’ death?”

The corner of Loki’s mouth twitched. “It is not a cube of death, Darcy. It’s a cube of pure energy.”

Erik sighed. “Of _course_ we’re leading them right to it. This is S.H.I.E.L.D. Once they start watching you, they never stop. I get the feeling you planned this.”

Loki took another large gulp of the blue water and pointed to his conveniently full mouth.

“So what do you think it’s going to do?” Jane glanced at him again, then colored slightly and turned her eyes back to the road. Loki swallowed and studied her profile.

“There is something I have not yet told you, Jane.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

Loki glanced at Erik in the rearview mirror and arched an eyebrow. “And what do you believe you know, Dr. Selvig?”

“About you?”

The corners of his mouth turned up. “Yes, tell us all what you know of Loki the Liesmith. Perhaps I will correct you. But then, according to your preconceived notions and your knowledge from the myths, how would you know if my corrections were truthful?” He snickered. “A situation without victory.”

“A Catch-22,” Darcy supplied, then widened her eyes when the other three looked at her. “What? I _read_.”

Erik sighed through his nose and held Loki’s gaze in the mirror. “Loki isn’t like the other gods.”

“Of course not, but why speak of Loki as though he does not sit in this vehicle with you?”

“Because I’m still not convinced.”

Jane flicked her eyes to the mirror. “Erik, I was _there_.”

“I know what you think you saw, Jane, but that’s just not possible. All we know for a fact is that this man is _telling_ us he’s Loki.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed slightly, voice a low hiss. “Humor me, Dr. Selvig.”

“Why?”

“Because if you do, I will give you proof when your analysis is complete.” He smiled again, with significantly less warmth. “And you scientists do _live_ for proof to your theories.”

Erik’s throat worked, then he sat up straighter in the seat. “Fine, then. You aren’t Æsir or Vanir like the other gods. You’re the wish-son of Odin, foster-brother to Thor, but you’re the son of Frost Giants. You always resented that you were never treated the same way as the other gods, so you caused mischief, and you’re ultimately going to be responsible for Ragnarok. Nothing you say can be trusted because everything has a double meaning, and everything you do is for your own ends, no matter who you hurt in the process.” Erik leaned forward. “Am I close, _Loki?_ ”

This time, it was Loki’s throat that worked, and he forced himself to keep a smooth expression as he stared through the windshield. “Am I meant to confirm or deny this?”

“You tell us, Silvertongue.”

Loki closed his eyes briefly, the weight of Jane’s gaze on him sending a sick heat twisting through his stomach. “The knowledge of my birth was only recently come to light, in all actuality, but yes, I am a…” He paused for a moment at the foul taste in his mouth. “Frost Giant, as you say. The son of Laufey, king of Jotunheim, long the sworn enemy of Odin Allfather and Asgard. The Jotun armies came to Midgard… to Earth, to use your term, over a thousand of your years ago. They intended to crush your people and rule this realm. Odin Allfather led the armies of Asgard against them and drove them back to Jotunheim, taking the source of their power from them. While there, he found me.”

Jane’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, but as she opened her mouth to speak, Darcy cut in. “Wait, so he kidnapped you?”

“That depends on how you choose to look at it.”

“Well, how else would you look at it.”

He could hear the words coming from his mouth, but they didn’t feel like his. “The culture of the Jotuns is one of war and strength. Those born smaller are considered weak and are often abandoned to die. I was considered a runt.” Jane’s eyes flicked to him again, but he kept his gaze on the windshield, not quite seeing the road in front of them. “Odin cast some sort of spell over me so that I appeared Æsir and took me in as his younger son. So I believed until the day that I fell to this planet. That is why we are going to the Tesseract. That cube is nothing but raw energy. If this mortal form is yet another spell, I should be able to rip it away and become my true self again.”

Jane’s voice was almost inaudible. “And if it’s not?”

“Then I will need to get used to what you people consider food.”

The Jeep was silent for many minutes, and Loki held himself as still as possible. The thoughts had been swimming through his mind, but to actually articulate them was… different. He felt hollow. Eventually he spoke again, his voice almost back to normal. “As to the rest of your assessment, Dr. Selvig, you are mostly correct. I am known as the Silvertongue and the Liesmith in Asgard and beyond. I am… _was_ the god of mischief. In this mortal form I am but a shadow of what I was. As for bringing about the end of all creation, that goal is a bit lofty even for me, and I have not had children with a frost giantess in the form of a giant serpent, a wolf, and a guardian of the dead. Hela rules Helheim, but it is not full of corpses, and she is not my daughter. I have no children. Heimdall and I may be each other’s deaths one day, I suppose, but only because I find him insufferable and he finds me particularly irritating.”

Jane slowed the Jeep and pulled over to the side of the road, watching him until he at last turned to look at her. “Loki, why are you on Earth?”

“I was sent here.”

“The day that you find out Odin isn’t your father?”

“The day I discover that my entire existence is a lie, yes.” His eyes narrowed, voice growing sharp with anger meant for Odin. “Because I led Frost Giants into Asgard on the day of Thor’s coronation, to disrupt the ceremony. They came into the palace to steal back the Casket of Ancient Winters, which Odin took from them after the war on Midgard. It led to Thor bringing us to Jotunheim to seek answers, and we certainly found answers. My form shifted when the Frost Giants touched me. For over a thousand of your years, I knew myself to be Loki Odinson, only to discover that _everything_ they ever told me was a lie by watching my flesh turn blue. And I would never have known if I hadn’t played one trick on my so-called brother, if I hadn’t pushed things just a little too far that one time. They would still have me believing a lie.” He unbuckled the seatbelt, voice a low hiss. “So your jest about Schrödinger’s body was an apt one. I don’t know whether this is yet another spell of the Allfather, yet another lie, or if he has changed me somehow, cursed me in earnest as punishment for ruining his son’s big day. Opening the Tesseract might kill me, it might restore me to the lie I’ve lived since my first memory, or it might strip all of this away and show me to be the blue-skinned, red-eyed beast that I’ve spent my whole life believing to be the enemy. Does that satisfy your damnable curiosity, Selvig?” He kept his eyes on Jane as he spoke. “Are all of your warnings about me to Jane and Darcy now proven true? Are you content now?”

Erik put his hand on Darcy’s arm even though she was flat against the back of the seat. “Jane, let’s go.”

Her eyes were locked on Loki’s. “We’re going to the Tesseract site, Erik. If you and Darcy don’t want to come, I’ll drop you off at the next stop and you can get lunch.”

“Jane, he just admitted–”

“That he’s looking for answers, Erik. Just like we are.”

“He’s _dangerous_ , Jane.”

“Every scientific discovery has risks attached to it.”

“There’s a slight difference between putting your career on the line and risking you life following someone like this!”

Loki held up his hand and curled his fingers, conjuring a dancing green flame with a slight flick of his wrist. Darcy yelped. “Here is your proof, Dr. Selvig,” Loki said quietly, studying Jane’s face. “If you choose to leave, it is your right. I do not compel any of you to accompany me. You have brought me this far, and I thank you for it.”

“I’m not leaving,” Jane said quietly.

Darcy cleared her throat. “This is worth so much more than six college credits. I’m in.”

Loki felt his throat constrict. “Thank you.” He extinguished the flame, beads of sweat forming on his brow.

Jane turned in the seat. “You staying or leaving, Erik? I’m sure the S.H.I.E.L.D. goons will give you a ride home.”

Darcy’s eyes widened. “…Oh, snap.”

Erik sighed quietly and shook his head. “This is a bad idea.”

Jane smiled. “Maybe, but it’s the right thing to do.”

Loki sank back against the seat. “Another small distance in this direction, and we’ll reach the Tesseract. I can feel it. We’re close.”

Erik’s voice was softer. “How close?”

Loki took a deep breath and concentrated, then held both of his hands out, fingers splayed toward the windshield. A stream of crackling blue light shot up from the ground toward the sky, and Loki gasped and gripped the Jeep door. “Close,” he managed, gulping in air. “Drive, Jane.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of part 2.


	11. Pain

_Loki spake:_

_"Lo, in has come the son of Earth:  
Why threaten so loudly, Thor?  
Less fierce thou shalt go to fight with the wolf  
When he swallows Sigfather up."_

_–Lokasenna 58_

_#  
_

 

Loki stumbled out of the Jeep and fell promptly to his knees. Jane hurried around the vehicle, her hand on his shoulder before Darcy and Erik had time to open their doors. He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly, cutting himself off to cough. She slid her arm around his shoulders and gripped his arm to hold him steady as his entire body shook with the effort, blood splattering across the dusty ground.

Darcy skidded to a halt. “That doesn’t look good.”

“His body isn’t capable of sustaining that kind of energy,” Erik said, and Jane squeezed Loki gently.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?”

Loki shook his head slowly and ran a trembling hand across his mouth, the blood too bright against his skin. “It doesn’t matter. This is the only way.”

“There has to be something else.”

He met her eyes, and it took a moment to pull his attention away from her pupils dilating. “Asgard will not simply come here to take me back. If I’m to go back, I need to earn it. I know how the Allfather’s mind works. Everything he does has a purpose. Everything is some sort of lesson.”

“But what if you–”

“Jane.” He touched his forehead briefly to hers. “This is my choice. Will you help me to the Tesseract?” She nodded and eased his arm around her, and he was ashamed that he required her help to stand. Darcy was on his other side, close enough to catch him if he stumbled without touching. His laughter was weak. “The clever Loki can’t even command his own legs.”

“You seem to be getting weaker as you get closer to the power source,” Erik said, shaking his head and following them. “How is that possible?”

“His body’s not used to this kind of energy. It’s like us getting close to a radioactive charge without any sort of protection.”

“Only he’s turning himself into a human battery,” Darcy supplied. “Please don’t die, dude. I started to like you.”

Loki’s arm tightened involuntarily around Jane as the scorched hole in the ground came into view, and his knees gave way.

 

_#_

 

The streak across the darkened sky was unmistakeable, and Laufey began to chuckle. “He found it,” he murmured, oddly pleased that such power would fall into the hands of his son, even if the princeling didn’t live long enough to revel in it. A second surge of light shot across the cosmos from Asgard toward the first, and Laufey turned.

“We go to Asgard,” he said, and Grundroth bowed his head as Laufey turned to look at the sky. “You will lead them against the palace.”

“You won’t be leading us, my king?”

“I have unfinished business,” Laufey said quietly.

 

_#_

 

Thor’s feet hit the ground hard, and he glanced around at the unfamiliar, barren landscape with a slight frown. “Where is Loki?”

Fandral turned, eyebrows drawing together. “Well, he… has to be here _somewhere_ , doesn’t he?”

Volstagg squinted at the horizon. “We should look for signs of a camp. He couldn’t have gone far.”

Hogun shook his head. “He wouldn’t leave signs of a camp.”

“Or we could just follow them,” Sif said, pointing to a long train of black vehicles that had suddenly stopped. Humans began to step out of them and raise their hands to shield their eyes from the sun.

Fandral’s eyebrows shot up. “I think we’ve been spotted.”

“Let them look,” Thor said, tightening his grip on Mjolnir. “I have business with my brother.”

Volstagg held out a hand. “Ah, my king, are we sure we want to engage…”

“Who said anything about engaging them?” Thor turned with a warm smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I simply intend to ask for directions.”

“Directions to the raven-haired magician, or the giant blue beacon that shot out of the ground into the sky? Oh, this’ll go over well,” Fandral said dryly. “Sif, do something charming.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because I don’t want to be the charming one all the time, Hogun never smiles, and Volstagg’s close enough to hit me if I suggest it.”

“I’m not going to be charming.”

“Well, Thor certainly isn’t.” Fandral sighed. “The things I do for you four…”

 

_#_

 

“Are you okay?” Jane’s voice sounded distant, as though she spoke into a pillow from across a room. Loki grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut. “Loki, you’re bleeding.”

He touched his upper lip and came away with spots of red on his fingertips. “I appear to be running out of time.”

“Uh, guys?”

Loki looked up and followed Darcy’s outstretched hand to the semicircle of obsidian vehicles that came to a sudden, abrupt halt. Several men and women in suits were getting out, but rather than approaching them, they seemed to be staring out at the desert. Whatever had distracted the agents didn’t matter. The rush of power was drowning him, smothering him, and he ignored the unpleasant sensation that his insides were gradually liquifying. He crawled forward on hands and knees, pulling out of Jane’s grip as his blood dripped into the dirt and dust. The sand blackened as he neared, and his progress slowed. A faint blue glow rose from the hole reaching deep into the ground.

“Loki!” Jane scooted closer, and Loki shook his head with gritted teeth.

“No, Jane. I have no idea what this will do.”

“You can barely keep yourself upright!”

“And I will not risk this killing you,” he snapped, his arms beginning to tremble. “Please, Jane. After everything I’ve done, all the things I truly am guilty of, do not add any harm you sustain to that list.”

“I’m not really worried about your guilt at the moment.”

“Then worry about how you will distract me, if you refuse to be as concerned for your welfare as I am, and how deadly such a distraction could be.” He settled back on his heels and wiped his hand under his nose, smearing the blood. “Please. If this doesn’t kill me, you are free to argue with me at a later time to your heart’s content.”

“…Don’t let this kill  you.”

“That is an outcome I hope to avoid.” He kept his eyes fixed on the burned ground ahead of him. “Darcy, Erik, please keep her from coming closer.” The slight scuffle behind him only urged him forward, a piercing agony lancing through his skull. He could feel the blood when it fell from his earlobes and trickled down the sides of his jaw. “My choice,” he murmured, and he reached into the charred ground to grip the Tesseract.

 

_#_

 

“We do not have time for this,” Thor muttered as the humans approached, moving Mjolnir to catch Fandral lightly across the chest before he could walk forward.

A man of shorter stature in dark clothing gave them an easy smile. “Hello. I’m Agent Phil Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. You are?”

“I am Thor Odinson, of Asgard. I seek Loki.”

“We’re going to need to have a conversation, Mr. Odinson.”

“I do not have time for an idle conversation, son of Coul. If you will not assist us, then get out of our way. Time is of the essence.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is, but our national security is also of the essence.”

“Asgard means you no harm.” Fandral grinned. “This is the Lady Sif, and we are the Warriors Three. I am Fandral the Dashing.” His grin widened. “This is Volstagg the Valiant, and Hogun the Grim.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all, but I’m a little concerned with this sudden influx of people from Asgard.”

Thor’s eyes narrowed. “So you have seen Loki.”

“Loki popped my jaw out of place,” another man said, stepping forward.

“And you are?”

“Agent Clint Barton. Codename Hawkeye.” He pointed. “Your boy is with three civilians who fall under United States federal jurisdiction, and if you threaten any of them, I’m gonna have to put an arrow through your eye socket.” He lifted one shoulder. “Loki, though, knock yourself out.”

Sif arched an eyebrow. “You don’t seem overly concerned about Loki.”

“Not even a little bit, ma’am. I’ll help you beat him up.”

Sif pressed her lips together and looked at Thor. “I like him.”

Fandral rubbed a hand across his face. “You can’t bring humans back to Asgard.”

“Pity.”

“Enough.” Thor looked from Agent Barton to Agent Coulson, expression hardening. “As acting king of Asgard, you have my word that none of your citizens will be harmed. We are here to speak with one of our own.”

Agent Coulson’s eyebrows rose. “King? I’m pretty sure an interstellar political matter is out of our jurisdiction.”

Volstagg smiled brightly. “Then we’ll collect Loki and be on our way!”

Agent Barton turned. “Uh, you guys might want to step on that before he blows himself up.” He glanced at Agent Coulson. “Sir, I think I found where he put the Tesseract.”

Thor gripped Agent Barton’s shoulder and turned him around. “The Tesseract is here?”

“Mr. Odinson, I’m going to have to ask you to unhand my agent.”

“If Loki has the Tesseract, that would explain…” Sif’s eyes widened. “We don’t have much time.”

Thor spun Mjolnir at his side. “No, we don’t.” He pushed off from the ground.

Agent Barton blinked and turned his head slowly toward Coulson. “After this, sir, I’m putting in for vacation time.”

 

_#_

 

The scream tearing itself from his throat was the sound of a wounded animal, not a man, and Loki stared at the Tesseract until the blue glow filled his vision. His insides were on fire, boiling under skin he was sure would peel away at any second, but he pulled that scalding energy deeper into himself until his head felt ready to split open. Everything was blue, and too hot, and he wasn’t the only one screaming. Jane’s voice was so far away, calling his name, demanding to be let go, always seeking answers. Even he had no answers for this, a power reaching into the marrow of his bones and tugging at something ancient, something more primal and powerful than he had ever known existed within himself.

His skin tingled, and he saw that it wasn’t his vision tinted blue, but his flesh. Horror coiled in his belly, but he set his jaw. If this was who he was… well, then, so be it. As he watched, the heat became a more pleasant, familiar thrumming along his nerves, and his skin warmed to a more familiar color.

“Loki!”

As he turned, his clothing shimmered around him and shifted to the familiar black leather accented in green, golden armor concealing his throwing knives, and his smile widened as the familiar weight of the horned helmet settled on him. He tilted his head as he looked at Thor, then ignored him and turned his attention to Jane, whose eyes were widening as Darcy and Erik stared with dropped jaws.

“Oh. My. _God_.”

“I told you,” Loki said with a smirk, an odd jolt shooting through him when she laughed.

“So, is this how you normally look?”

“Generally speaking, yes.”

“It’s a good look.” Her smile widened. “A really good look.”

Loki’s grin widened, then he sighed. “Doctor Jane Foster, allow me to introduce you to Asgard’s heir, Thor Odinson.”

Thor shook his head slightly. “You’ve done it.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” His voice dropped to a low sneer. “Not all of us find our power in crowns and weapons, apparently.”

Thor swallowed. “Loki, come home.”

“Home?” He stepped forward, slowly closing the distance between them. “Home, Thor? To what? To more lies? When even the liesmith is this desiring of the truth, something is clearly very wrong.”

“We need you.”

“What for? Surely you have all you could ever possibly need, Odinson.”

“Loki, stop this. Our father has fallen into the Odinsleep.”

He held up a finger, then prodded the center of Thor’s chest. “ _Your_ father. You know my true parentage.”

Thor shook his head. “We were raised together. We played together. We _fought_ together. Do you remember none of that?”

Loki’s jaw tightened, but the malice slipped from his voice. “I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness. Always, I wondered, is it because you are the heir, because yours is the might and the strength and the glory? Always, I wondered, why am I so different from my brother? Why am I always behind?” He smiled, but the corners of his mouth turned downward, and his voice thickened. “Well, now we know, Odinson. You are the golden prince, and I the monster.”

“You are my _brother_ , Loki!” His hand clamped around the back of Loki’s neck, throat convulsing. “I don’t care if you’re Laufey’s blood. I don’t care if you were born in Helheim with six heads and no eyes.” His voice cracked. “Come _home_ , Loki.”

A rush of wind and crackling drew their attention to the sky, where dark clouds swirled into a funnel and reached toward the ground. Loki’s eyes narrowed. “Is that Sif? The Warriors Three?”

Thor stepped back and tightened his grip on Mjolnir. “No, they are here already, speaking with the son of Coul and a man whose jaw you seem to have broken.”

“Barton. He deserved it.” Loki reached out to grip Jane’s forearm and move her behind him. “Then if you’re all here, who’s using the Bifrost?”


	12. Patricide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains depictions of violence that some viewers may find disturbing.

  
_Thor spake:_

_"Unmanly one, cease, or the mighty hammer,_   
_Mjollnir, shall close thy mouth;_   
_I shall hurl thee up and out in the East,_   
_Where men shall see thee no more."_

_–Lokasenna 59_   


 

#

 

“Jane, run.”

“What’s happening?”

Loki kept his hand on her arm to hold her behind him. “The Bifrost is the bridge you spoke of.”

“The Einstein-Rosen Bridge?”

“Yes. It allows us to travel between the realms.” He studied the light piercing down through the clouds into the ground. “And right now, the ruling king of Asgard has no idea who’s using that bridge, so when I say, run.”

Thor spun Mjolnir at his side. “It could be nothing.”

“Well, you continue being hopeful, Thor. You’re quite good at that. I’ll continue to be realistic.” He glanced at Erik and Darcy, who were moving behind him as well. “Kindly force Jane to move if her curiosity overwhelms her survival instinct.”

Darcy held one thumb up. “You got it, space man.”

“Thank y–” Loki grunted at the impact, the bolt of ice to his stomach knocking him backward into Jane and sending them both skidding backward, just barely missing Darcy and Erik. Loki moaned and struggled to keep his weight off of Jane, scrambling to his hands and knees over her. “Are you all right?”

She coughed and blinked up at him, her eyes widening as they moved over his shoulder to whatever was behind him. “Loki…”

“Stay… nnngh.” He gritted his teeth as another blast slammed into his spine, jerking him forward. He only just managed to remain upright over Jane, and her arm flew up to cover her face. “Stay down,” he hissed, shoving himself up away from her.

“On your knees, princeling, as it should be.” Laufey’s voice was a low rumble, and Loki turned to see him smile, the ice spear over his hand held against Erik’s throat as a dozen Frost Giants surrounded them. “My son.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “You couldn’t kill me when I was an infant, what makes you think you can do so now?”

“Because your foster brother is going to let me.” He tilted his head and smiled at Thor, who had Mjolnir griped tightly in his hand. “Unless you’re willing to sacrifice your precious Asgard for its betrayer.”

“The Earth is under the protection of Asgard, as are its people.”

“What good will Asgard do you when the blood of its king and queen is dripping down over the edges of the Bifrost?” Laufey’s grin widened. “The palace is breached by now, little prince.” Sif and the Warriors Three skidded to a halt behind Thor, weapons drawn, and watched as Laufey’s other hand extended toward Darcy while his guard faced them with unpleasant smiles. “If you leave now, you might be able to save the Allfather and his queen before their hearts are carved out of their chests, and I’ll allow you to live to see your golden realm subjugated as mine was.” He turned back to Loki, a second ice spear forming until its tip was a hairsbreadth away from Darcy’s cheek. “Leave me here with my son, and the Bifrost will be opened to you. You’ll be able to return to Asgard, and your king and queen will be spared. Stay here, and they will die.”

“You’re not going to leave Midgard alive,” Thor snarled, and Laufey only laughed.

“I’ve already won, little prince. Asgard is mine. Whether you and your friends live to see your parents again is entirely up to you. Refuse, and the Bifrost takes me back to Asgard, leaving you stranded here with your precious humans, and no way to return until I see fit to allow it.”

“Go,” Loki said, pushing himself slowly to his feet and keeping himself between Laufey and Jane. “Go back to Asgard.”

Thor’s jaw tightened. “Loki, no.”

“There isn’t exactly time to play hero, is there?” The shadows cast from the horns of his helmet nearly reached them. “Especially not to the man responsible for opening the pathways between the realms.” The corners of his mouth turned up. “I don’t require anything from you, Asgardian.”

Thor’s eyes flicked to him. “Loki…”

“Go!” He shot his hands forward, sending bursts of green energy toward Laufey, who swung the ice spears down to block them. Loki drew his knives from within his armor and flung them forward as Laufey rushed toward him, knocking the blades aside easily. One of the spears caught him in the side, stabbing through his armor and piercing under his ribs. Loki ground his teeth and fell backward, using Laufey’s momentum to tug him forward. Loki brought his legs in close to his chest and kicked up. Laufey crashed into the ground several feet away, and Loki gripped his side. The Jotun guards had their spears pointed at the Warriors Three, and two of them were extending their spears toward Sif.

“Make your choice, little prince,” Laufey said, laughing even as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Save the traitor and then the blood of your parents will be on your hands.” He grunted as he sat up. “This is your last chance to return to Asgard and save them.”

Loki tilted his head with narrowed eyes. “And how, might I ask, will your people know how to operate the Bifrost?” He grinned slowly. “Or where to point it? What signal to look for? Unless you thought to signal to them with the Tesseract.” He stood slowly, and could feel the blood sliding across his skin under his armor. “You think I’ll let you have it?”

“You think you can stop me?” He laughed again. “Your magic comes from _me_ , boy. There is nothing you know that I can’t do a thousand times better than you. I am a _king_ , and what are you? Lost little runt who didn’t have the sense to die when he was too young to feel it.” He flung his arm out and shot a bolt of ice at Jane. She scrambled backward as it buried itself in the ground beside her. “And now this world’s made you even softer and weaker than you were.” He shoved one ice spear into the ground to push himself up, lowering his voice. “You won’t give up the Tesseract to save them, boy?”

Loki tightened his grip on his side. “Why should I? What have they done for me? All the lies. All the secrets. Why should I save them?”

Laufey’s lip curled. “And so you’ll die alone, for what, boy? Without love, without a place.” Laufey stopped, his head tipping back as a blade pressed hard against his throat. Loki twisted his hand, the bleeding illusion of himself disappearing, and brought his face close to Laufey’s as he pressed the knife harder against his throat.

“For honor.”

Laufey laughed again. “This is suicide, boy. You’ll never save your precious Asgard, and your little mortals will die before my body hits the ground.”

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you, _father_.” Loki gripped Laufey’s arm and bent it high behind his back. As soon as his fingers closed around Laufey’s flesh, they turned blue, and a chill spread through his entire body. “Jotunheim is a realm of war, is it not? If I defeat you, oh mighty _king_ , will your people still follow? When I expose your every weakness, will they abandon you as you abandoned your infant son?” His skin was warming again, inexplicably, and power surged through his veins. He shoved magic into Laufey’s body, making him rigid with pain as he cried out. “I am not the one on my knees now, am I, Laufey?” He pushed him down, Laufey’s shoulder dislocating with a sickening crack as Loki sneered. “My magic doesn’t come from you. It comes from my _mother_ , the Queen of Asgard. Your blood means nothing. _You_ mean _nothing_.”

“Loki?”

He tore his eyes away from Laufey and looked at Jane, the small cut on her lip sending a boiling rage through him that was only quieted when she spoke again. Her voice was soft.

“Loki, why are your eyes blue?”

He blinked and furrowed his brows, shaking himself. Laufey gripped his wrist and yanked, tugging him over and flipping him onto his back. Loki just barely managed to roll away as the ice spear buried itself where his head had been only a moment before. He flicked his wrist almost without thinking, and the blade buried itself in Laufey’s neck.

As Loki stared, he could see the Frost Giants falling one by one as Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three drove them back. One tumbled backward with an arrow lodged in his eye. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Laufey’s face, those red eyes the same color as the blood spilling between his fingers as he gripped his throat.

He was laughing when he died.

The pain in Loki’s side was suddenly there again, and he dropped to one knee and tugged the helmet off. He was hot, suddenly, boiling inside his armor. The helmet thunked against the ground, and he wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. How could he have chills when he was so warm?

“Loki, what happened?” Jane was there, her hands so small and cool and soft against his forehead and cheek. She was studying his face from inches away. So close. So close he could count her eyelashes. So close…

Everything was swimming, and somehow the ground didn’t come up to meet him as he thought it was going to. He blinked sluggishly, stomach churning. “Jane.” His voice was slurred. So tired. He was so tired, and was he still bleeding? Shouldn’t he have healed by now?

Jane eased his head onto her thigh. “Erik, what’s happening?”

“I don’t know, but the cube stopped glowing.” He waved his arms over his head. “Hey! Over here!”

Darcy dropped to her knees beside them, and he could barely move his eyes to her face. “Hey, space guy, it’s not nap time.”

Loki swallowed with some effort. So tired. So tired… what if he just… rested, for a little while… with Jane…

“Loki, stay awake.” Her fingers tightened on his jaw and held his face still. “You don’t stay awake, we’re either getting arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D. or Asgard. You don’t want that, right? So you have to stay awake.”

He felt himself smiling. “You won’t be… won’t be arrested.”

“Jane, what do we do?” Darcy’s voice had an edge of hysteria.

“I don’t know. Loki? Loki, wake up!”

“Just resting for… a moment…”

“You promised me answers, remember? You’re not going back on your promise.” She slapped his cheek lightly. “Wake up. You’re not going to lie to me, are you?”

“I’m… the liesmith…”

“But not to me. You made me a promise, Loki, and you have to stay awake if you’re going to keep it.”

“Yo, mustache, what the hell are we supposed to do?”

Fandral sheathed his sword, panting slightly, and looked them over. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“It must be the effects of the Tesseract. He was fine but a moment ago!” Volstagg hurried to stand next to him, Hogun following close behind. “…But he’ll be all right, won’t he?”

Fandral’s brows furrowed, and he knelt beside Darcy. “Loki, no more mischief. We can’t get back to Asgard without your help.”

Loki closed his eyes and shook his head. “Staying here. Jane has… science… promised her.”

“Yes, well, we’d all like to keep our promises, but you can’t do that if you’re dead. Wake up.” Fandral smacked the side of Loki’s face, then looked up as Thor and Sif sprinted toward them. “There’s something wrong with him.”

Thor eased Fandral out of the way. “Loki? Loki!”

Loki’s eyes opened briefly, and he smiled at Jane. Everything was going to be fine. Everything was… was…


	13. Planning

_Loki spake:_

"A long time still do I think to live,  
Though thou threatenest thus with thy hammer;  
Rough seemed the straps of Skrymir's wallet,  
When thy meat thou mightest not get,  
(And faint from hunger didst feel.)"

–Lokasenna 62

_#  
_

 

“Dude, if this screws up my chances at grad school, I swear to God…”

“Darcy, really? Seriously?”

“What? I’m suddenly not supposed to be freaking out about every bad thing that could ever possibly happen to us now because a freaking _alien_ dropped into our lives and now there are a bunch of dead abominable snowmen in the middle of New Mexico? And what the hell is with this guy’s _mustache?_ Dude, that is, like, the most epic facial hair in the history of time.”

“…Why, thank you.”

“Fandral, stop flirting for once in your life.”

“Why, Sif? Is Loki suddenly going to wake up if I–”

“The more you speak, the less inclined I am to wake up,” Loki muttered, wincing. He turned his head and found himself looking at Jane’s shirt. Lines intersecting in a neat pattern. Simple, oddly soothing to look at. His voice was low. “What is this called?”

“Loki?”

“Yes, I’m still alive, all evidence to the contrary.” His arm was heavy, but he managed to lift it and trace his finger along the edge of the shirt. It was unbuttoned, open over another with the image of an odd little creature on it. He tugged the open shirt. “This pattern. What is it called?”

Jane blinked down at him. “…Plaid?”

“Plaid. I like it.” He dropped his arm and closed his eyes. “My idiot brother is still here, isn’t he?”

“If you mean the tall blond man with the very big hammer, then yes.”

“Wonderful.” He rolled his head again and looked up at her. “I may need your help.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you, Doctor Jane Foster. I need that brilliant mind.”

Darcy leaned over with one eyebrow arched. “Dude, even looking like death, you are _smooth_.”

“I do not look like death.”

“Yeah, pretty sure you do. You were all corpsified and blergh.” She held up one hand limply and made a face. Loki snorted.

“I never looked like that, and I’m not convinced that the words you use actually exist in your language.”

Darcy looked at Jane. “He’s sassing me. He’s fine.”

Loki grunted as he pushed himself into a sitting position, Jane’s hand between his shoulders. He rubbed his fingers across his forehead and took a deep, slow breath. In, count of seven, out, count of nine. “I’m going to need your help determining how to fix this little problem I’ve created.”

“…This is a little problem for you? What exactly do you consider a big problem, Loki?”

“The one I intend to describe to you once we’re out of the sun and away from the irritating humans in suits.” He opened his eyes, and when he turned to look at her, found her face startlingly close. Her breath brushed against his nose. She cleared her throat and looked away.

“Yeah, about that. You remember when  you threatened the government to return my equipment?”

“Do I need to do so again? My threats are more effective when I’m wearing my helmet.” He blinked. “Where did I put my helmet?”

“Over there. It’s a pretty badass helmet,” Darcy said with a nod.

“I’m thinking you might want to do something about the cube.”

Loki glanced up to see Thor arguing with Coulson and sighed. “That oaf has no finesse, and he’s to rule Asgard.”

“Yo, mustache, down here, bro.” Darcy waved her hand, and Fandral crouched down beside them.

“You, my friend, have quite a bit of explaining to do.”

“Do I, Fandral?” He blinked slowly. “And are we friends?”

“Did that ever change?”

Loki watched him for what felt like an eternity, but Fandral never flinched. “You don’t believe that I betrayed Asgard.”

“I believe that you’ve always had more reasons for what you do than you’ve ever admitted to any of us,” he said quietly, “and that while your mischief sometimes goes too far, the six of us have never encountered a problem we couldn’t all solve together.” Fandral smiled at Darcy. “Loki’s gotten us out of more trouble than he’s gotten us into, by my count. We’ll get through this in spite of all the shouting you’re hearing back there.”

“Is that why you’re wearing green?” Darcy tilted her head. “The shade isn’t the same as Loki’s, but the fact that you’re wearing a shade of green while the really terrifying lady with the shield is wearing red would indicate loyalty to a specific lord who uses those colors.” She blinked, then sighed. “Why is everyone always so surprised when I know things?”

Fandral laughed. “You’re correct, sweet Darcy. I swore loyalty to Loki first. The Lady Sif is betrothed to Thor, and she’s sworn to him as well as to the realm.”

Darcy’s eyebrows shot up. “…The way they’re yelling at each other? They’re gonna get married?” She smirked. “But they’re scaring the suits, and I dig that.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Jane moved her hand slowly across Loki’s back and glanced down at his side. “Do you need to go to the hospital, or… or just rest, or something?”

He shook his head. “There’s no time. If Laufey and his men used the Bifrost, that means they’ve done something to Heimdall, the gatekeeper. He’s either been detained or killed. That means we have to operate under the assumption that the Bifrost is unusable to us.”

“What about the Tesseract?”

Fandral cleared his throat. “That, dear Jane, might be a bit of a problem. It seems to have… shut itself off.”

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose. “And I would surmise that these S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are looking to confiscate it again in the hopes of waking it.”

Darcy wrinkled her nose. “You guys are talking about it like it’s alive.”

Loki blinked at her until her eyes widened, and then turned back to Jane. “More to the point, I need to find ways to close the pathways between Asgard and Jotunheim. Getting us back to Asgard won’t do much good if the Frost Giants are able to continue to pour into the realm.” He winced and rubbed his temple. “And I’ll explain to you how that was done, once we’re out of the sun, and perhaps you can help me determine how best to undo it.”

 

_#_

 

“The standard definition for antimatter is that it’s basically the opposite of matter. When matter and antimatter collide, the two particles destroy each other, but they produce pure radiation that travels at the speed of light, and they leave other subatomic particles behind.” Jane was sketching on the white board so quickly that the markers were leaving little blue smudges on her fingers, and Loki couldn’t help but grin as she moved about in a flurry. “As far as we know, there are no existing antiparticles near us right now, so on Earth, we have to create them artificially. There is, however, a theoretical deposit of naturally occurring antimatter at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.”

“Jane theorizes,” Loki said, keeping his expression smooth as all eyes flicked to him, “that the Tesseract is capable of creating both matter and antimatter, which is how it produces unlimited energy. In effect, it generates the same power that spawned much of the cosmos. The radiation and additional subatomic particles appear to be the cause of the damage done to my body when I harnessed its energy in my mortal form.”

Jane pointed a marker at Loki. “Which I’m still calculating. I don’t have an explanation for how Loki’s able to do it, because I don’t have enough data on him yet. It doesn’t make sense to us on Earth because we’re only able to create antimatter in incredibly small amounts using high-energy particle colliders.”

Erik nodded slowly. “So the Tesseract is in a continual state of energy creation.”

“Right.”

Darcy furrowed her brows. “How?”

Jane pressed her lips together. “That, I don’t know yet. I’d need a lot more research, and quite frankly I don’t think that type of research is plausible.”

“Why not?”

Erik studied the white board as he spoke. “Well, the radiation, to begin with. Anything that’s creating energy at that capacity is going to be emitting an incredible amount of radiation, and there isn’t any way to be sure that’s safe. Then, there’s the question of who would be conducting this research, and for what. If it was to research sustainable, clean energy…”

Darcy grinned. “But considering the… what’d you call ‘em?”

“Jack-booted thugs.”

“Yeah, those guys out there? They’d use it for weapons.”

“And that isn’t something we can let happen.” Jane let her breath out slowly. “So as much as it kills me to say this, we can’t have research on the Tesseract on Earth right now. At least not here. S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t get their hands on it.”

Erik shook his head. “There’s speculation that an organization already did that during the second world war. We don’t need that happening again.”

“But likewise, neither can the Frost Giants,” Loki said.

Sif nodded. “Even with Laufey dead, Jotunheim is still at war with Asgard, and they cannot have such a weapon in their possession.”

Fandral scrubbed his hand across his mouth. “So what are we meant to do with it? We can’t leave it here, and we can’t very well bring it to Asgard.”

Volstagg shook his head. “But how else are we going to get back to Asgard? If Heimdall isn’t at his station…” His voice trailed off as Sif shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Regardless,” Loki said softly, “there are only a few options available to us. Now that I’m in my own body again, and I’m able to utilize the Tesseract’s energy, I can indeed bring us back to Asgard, but I can’t simply fling it into the cosmos when I’m through with it. There are other beings out there, and who knows where it would end up?”

Darcy slid off of the table and walked toward the board, murmuring. “Especially now that you have to deal with the whole succession thing.”

Loki arched an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“I’m assuming that King Loofah or whoever didn’t have any other sons, or he wouldn’t have made such a big deal about you.”

His jaw tightened, and a sick heat began to twist in his stomach. “No, not according to any of our knowledge. It was said that Laufey left no heir.”

“And something tells me this isn’t an elective monarchy, so that means you’re it, unless Loofah had his successor already crowned so there was a coregency. The only way around that would be if he hadn’t called you out on being his son, so the line of succession would fall to the next member of the collateral line. Could be your long lost uncle or cousin or someone.”

Fandral’s eyebrows shot up. “King Loki of Jotunheim. That has a disturbingly melancholy ring to it, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’ve no intention of ruling Jotunheim. What I intend is to get you all back to Asgard so you can drive the Frost Giants back to that frozen wasteland.”

Thor blinked. “You don’t intend to return with us?”

“Why, so that I can be tried as a traitor to the realm and locked in a prison cell?”

“I will not let that happen, brother.”

“Won’t you? Your lady sees fit to have me executed where I stand, save that she needs me in order to return home.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “It isn’t terribly pleasant to be stranded, is it, Sif?”

“I am not the queen of Asgard.”

“Yet.”

“This is a discussion for another time,” Thor snapped, his fingers tightening on Mjolnir’s handle.

“What we need to discuss is what Loki’s going to do with the Tesseract once he uses its energy to create another Einstein-Rosen bridge between Earth and Asgard.” Jane drew a deep breath. “You can’t leave it here.”

“And what would you then suggest, Jane? That I return it to Asgard and risk it falling into the Jotuns’ hands?”

“We can’t have that kind of power on Earth, not with S.H.I.E.L.D. pacing outside spying on my work.”

“This is not your decision.”

“You think there’s anything I’ve figured out that they don’t already know? You leave it here, they’re going to find it again, and you know it!”

“Then we will simply have to return for it when we have dealt with the current problems in Asgard.”

“And what if the government finds someone who’s able to unlock that power before you get back?” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “You do _not_ get to decide what’s best for the Earth.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “And you do? What authorizes you to speak for your entire realm, Jane?”

“If it’s a choice between all of us in this room and the men in suits on the other side of this door, I’m taking my chances with scientists who can understand the potential catastrophe that having the Tesseract on Earth could result in.”

“So you would have me bring what is likely the most powerful weapon in the cosmos into the middle of an all-out war, when the Allfather is lost to the Odinsleep.”

“When we don’t even know if you’re coming back because you have to deal with Jotunheim and the succession, not to mention the fact that you’re walking into a war and the–”

Loki covered her mouth with his, resting his hand on the back of her head as her voice was muffled against his lips. She froze. He could taste her pulse racing, and she lingered on his tongue as he pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. “Stop thinking,” he murmured, his breath stirring the hair that had worked itself loose from her ponytail. “Stop calculating. Just believe me.”

Jane licked her lips and blinked, heat rushing to her cheeks, and Loki had to hold his breath to keep himself still. “You’d better come back,” she managed at last, and for the first time in his life, he couldn’t think of a response.


	14. Pull

 

_Thor spake:_

_"Unmanly one, cease, or the mighty hammer,_   
_Mjollnir, shall close thy mouth;_   
_The slayer of Hrungnir shall send thee to hell,_   
_And down to the gate of death."_

_–Lokasenna 63_

_#  
_

 

“Wait just a second.” Jane grabbed the edge of Loki’s cape, and he paused with a raised eyebrow. “We need to talk.”

Thor’s expression was blank. “We should go discuss matters with your government agents as we promised.”

“But Jane totally needs us here for emotional support.”

“I’m actually fine, Darcy.”

“You sure? Because you look like you could use emotional support, and I am your rock.” Darcy nodded, the corners of her mouth turning up. Fandral had the grace to cover his mouth and pretend to cough as he laughed. Sif rolled her eyes and gripped the back of Darcy’s shirt.

“Come along. Fandral will need someone to flirt with or his heart might actually shatter.”

“It’s true. I’m in constant need of pretty ladies to smile at.” He offered Darcy his arm with a warm grin. “Shall we, sweet Darcy? I’ll need all of my strength and charm to face down those terribly sour men outside.”

Darcy smiled brightly. “I can be a rock for Mr. Mustache.”

Erik shook his head slowly, then raised his eyebrows at Jane. “We’ll be outside trying to talk S.H.I.E.L.D. down if you need us.” He stared at Loki for a moment, then shook his head again and followed the others out.

“What is it, Jane?”

She took a deep breath. “Listen, I don’t know how things work in Asgard, but here, you don’t just grab somebody like that.”

“It was not my intention to give offense.”

“…Well, that’s good to hear, but it still isn’t okay. You don’t touch people without their permission unless it’s pulling them out of traffic or something.”

Loki arched an eyebrow. “Or striking them with a vehicle.”

She clenched her jaw. “Could you try to _not_ be an asshole, please?”

He snorted. “That’s an interesting insult.”

“Stop trying to change the subject, Loki.” She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t care if you’re a prince of Asgard, or a king of Jotunheim, or emperor of the universe. You don’t get to touch me without asking permission and getting it. Getting consent for a kiss or… or something else isn’t negotiable. Do you understand that?”

Loki watched her quietly for a moment. “I assumed that I was reading your body language properly.”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter, Loki. What you think I’m okay with and what I’m actually okay with might not be the same thing, and you don’t get to assume when it comes to me.”

“No, I clearly do not.” He let his breath out slowly, voice softening. “You are right, Jane. I am sincerely sorry for behaving inappropriately. Please accept my apology. It’ll not happen again.”

She swallowed. “You just have to ask permission.”

One corner of his mouth turned up. “A prince isn’t used to that.”

She raised an eyebrow, voice icy. “Well, a prince better get used to it, or a prince can find somebody else to bounce ideas off of.”

He grinned. “You misunderstand, Jane. I am not unwilling, merely unfamiliar. Perhaps you would demonstrate what you mean.”

Jane blinked. “It’s not that hard, Loki. You just say, ‘may I kiss you?’”

“Why, yes, Jane, you may. How sweet of you to ask.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Ohh, you _asshole_.” She closed the distance between them and fisted her hands in his cape, yanking him down to crush her mouth against his. Loki’s arms wound around her waist and he lifted her up, laughing softly into her mouth as he backed her up into the white board. She made a low noise against his lips and slid her fingers into his hair. Loki was barely able to stifle his moan as he pulled away, but when he saw the flush in her cheeks, a rough sound escaped his throat and he kissed her again.

 

_#_

 

“So you’re not going to say anything.”

“What is there to say?”

“Oh, plenty, I’m sure.”

“I could say that I’m going to cut out your tongue if you don’t silence yourself.”

“Someone’s a bit grumpy for having just—”

Loki stopped and cracked his neck. “Fandral, unless you would like to live out your remaining days as a tongueless lizard, be silent.” Fandral smirked, and Loki rolled his eyes.

“We have more pressing matters to attend to,” Thor said, spinning the hammer in one hand as they moved away from the buildings and into the desert again. Loki arched an eyebrow.

“Nervous, are we?”

Sif narrowed her eyes. “It disturbs me that you aren’t.”

“If you have something to say, sweet Sif, best that you say it now, for there isn’t any guarantee that we’ll all of us survive when we return to Asgard.”

She drew in a breath through her nose. “As you wish, then. Did you lead the Frost Giants into Asgard?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He ignored Jane emerging from the room with her notebook, ignored the stares from the assembled humans. “To disrupt the coronation.”

Thor shook his head slowly. “Why, Loki?”

“Because you aren’t ready to lead Asgard,” he snapped, poison filling his mouth where his words had been. “Look at how easily you led your friends into Jotunheim.”

“So because you disagreed with the Allfather’s decision, you put the entire realm in the path of war? You set him up against Laufey!” Sif’s voice rose, and Loki sneered.

“I set all of us up against Laufey, and look at where that led us. Asgard needs a king, not a prince jumping at the chance to go to war.” He turned to Thor. “So tell me, _brother_ , how does it feel to wear the crown and sit the throne?”

“Hollow,” Thor said quietly. “Heavy and empty.” He held Loki’s eyes for a long moment. “If this is the lesson you wished to teach me, Loki, I am learning it with every moment I have to stand in father’s shadow without your counsel.”

“My counsel. What need do you have of my counsel?” He spat each word, his gut twisting. “What need do you have of a Frost Giant?”

“I need my _brother!_ ”

“I am _not_ your brother. I never _was_ your brother.”

“You think I care who birthed you?”

“Yo, guys!” Darcy stepped between the two of them with a raised eyebrow. “If there are actual abominable snowmen about to destroy your home, don’t you think you maybe wanna put off the slap fight until after you save your family? I mean, just a thought. Not like you guys are _grown ass men_ or anything.”

Sif pressed her lips together. “I like her.”

“So do I,” Fandral said, grinning. “Well then, chaps, shall we turn the Tesseract back on and return to Asgard before it’s reduced to a frozen wasteland?”

“I have one final question, Loki.” Sif’s face drained of mirth. “Laufey said that the house of Odin was full of traitors. That means it was more than just you. Who else was he talking about?”

“…Now, that, I don’t know, and am just as eager as you to find out.” He rubbed his hand across his face and looked at Jane. “Are you certain of your calculations?”

“Well, considering I was crunching numbers for an alien energy source that generates unlimited power from the continual creation and collision of matter and antimatter, which shouldn’t even be _possible_ …”

“Jane.” He raised his eyebrows. “Stop thinking.”

She blinked at him and shook her head. “Yes, my calculations are right. The math is right, anyway. The concepts are sound, but this is all theoretical. There might be variables we haven’t thought of.” She shook her head slowly. “The math is right, but this whole plan could backfire with energy this unstable.”

“That backfire is, in essence, exactly what we are hoping for. If I can use the Tesseract’s energy to snap us back to Asgard, the backfire should pull the pathway closed.”

Thor nodded. “And we were right when we guessed at the shadows around the pathways the Jotuns used.”

“Yes, so it’ll be a matter of collapsing the pathways in on themselves, a bit like a cave-in.” He couldn’t stop the grin spreading across his face. “You remember the cave troll incident.”

Thor snickered. “And the boulder landed on my cloak.”

“It took more time getting your cloak free than escaping that damned troll.”

He laughed and looked up, smile fading quickly. “We need to get back, Loki. Whatever quarrel we have, I swear to you, we will work it out.”

“But after we stop the Frost Giants, agreed.” He arched an eyebrow. “And leaving while those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are attempting to figure out what to do with thirteen Frost Giant bodies seems the best plan.”

“Are you well enough, brother?”

Loki flicked his eyes to Thor. “Not that we have much option, but you’re honestly concerned about my wellbeing after I’ve just confessed to ruining your coronation and setting all of this into motion?”

Thor cleared his throat and touched Loki’s elbow slightly, turning to give them at least the illusion of privacy. “I have as much blame in this as you, Loki.” He lowered his voice. “That I never intended to do you harm does not make it any less true. I am sorry. You were never my shadow. You were the only person I’ve ever trusted completely.”

He blinked and glanced out at the desert. “You truly didn’t know what I was.”

“I asked mother why she never told either of us. She loves you, as father does. With this animosity between our realms, she never wanted you to be ostracized. There is no way to know whether another choice would have been a better one.”

“No, there isn’t. Only the Norns can speculate on something like that.” He sighed through his nose. “If you can get Sif and the Warriors Three standing together, I’ll speak with Jane before we depart.”

Thor nodded. “Of course.” He gripped Loki’s shoulder gently. “And we will come back here. I swear it.”

Loki gave him a small smile, something unknotting in his stomach. “Very well, brother. Then we return to Asgard.” He waited until Thor placed his hand on the small of Sif’s back and glanced at the Warriors Three before turning to Jane.

“It kind of goes without saying that you need to be careful,” she said, glancing at the clusters of government agents hovering around the town’s perimeter. “I mean, with the Frost Giants and the fact that you’re forcing little pockets of space to collapse in on themselves.”

“I’m going to miss you,” he said frankly, shocked when the words tumbled out of his mouth. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Not your driving, certainly, or your food.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Then it’s a good thing you promised me answers, because then you’ll have to come back.”

He touched the small cut on her lip with the tip of his finger. “This should never have happened.”

“I decided to come with you. You didn’t force me, and I knew it could be dangerous. That’s not on you.” She traced her fingers along the back of his hand, then gripped it tightly. “Be careful.”

Loki watched her quietly for a moment. “May I kiss you, Jane Foster?”

She smiled again. “Only if you’re not kissing me goodbye.”

“Not without the promise of return, I assure you.”

“Then, yes, you may.”

He bent his head and brushed his lips gently against hers, a tiny voice in some dark corner of his mind telling him that he was a fool. What was a mortal to a god? The voice was silenced when her arms wound around his neck, and he held her waist as she rose on tiptoe. The intruding thought nearly crippled him. He could choose to stay. His entire life had been a lie, why not create another one? Why not stay here? Why not allow himself that respite, leave the mess to someone else? Why not stay with someone who had looked on him as a mortal, as a god, and as a monster, and still chose to stand here in his arms?

Loki blinked dazedly at her as she pulled away, her breath warm against his lips and her eyes so, so wide. He tightened his arms around her briefly, then dropped them at his sides and looked up at the sky. “Back to Asgard.”


	15. Penultimate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains depictions of violence and gore, and thematic elements that may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is advised.

 

_Loki spake:_

_"'1 have said to the gods and the sons of the god,_  
 _The things that whetted my thoughts;_  
 _But before thee alone do I now go forth,_  
 _For thou fightest well, I ween._

_Ale hast thou brewed, but, Ægir, now_  
 _Such feasts shalt thou make no more;_  
 _O'er all that thou hast which is here within_  
 _Shall play the flickering flames,_  
 _(And thy back shall be burnt with fire.)"_

_–Lokasenna 64-65_

_#  
_

 

Loki kept his eyes closed for a moment. There was always the distinct possibility that something had gone wrong, but until he opened his eyes, he could imagine that he was, in fact, in Asgard once again. That he was home. If he opened his eyes and he’d been trapped inside that Nothingness, that he’d only managed to send the others or, worse yet, if he’d gotten them all trapped…

“We must move quickly,” Thor said beside him, and Loki’s eyes opened at last. Asgard’s twin moons hovered just above them, not quite full, bathing them in soft white light. He nearly wept. Thor’s voice jarred him out of his thoughts. “We need to get to the palace.”

“No,” Loki said, and he felt five pairs of eyes locking on him. “We need to ensure that they cannot use the Bifrost. We need to cut off any additional routes to Asgard. The pathways through the Nothingness cannot accommodate more than a handful of beings at a time. It was a challenge bringing six of us through.” He watched Thor carefully. “If Laufey was right and they’ve already breached Gladsheim, we need to make sure no one else can come to their aid when we enter.”

“And if, as you say, only a few can come through at a time, Gladsheim cannot have fallen so quickly.” Sif grinned fiercely. “He lied. There’s still time.”

Fandral gripped his stomach and rubbed his fingers across his forehead. “And if that manner of travel is as unpleasant for the Frost Giants as it is for us…”

“It is,” Loki said dryly, and immediately regretted it. Fandral cleared his throat.

“Well, then, as Sif said, we have time.”

Volstagg looked toward the great palace and shook his head. “It can’t have fallen. Gladsheim never falls.”

“So, do we split up, or all go to the palace together after the Bifrost?” Fandral stood slowly and rubbed his lower back. “Ugh, I haven’t crouched in the bushes since…”

“…The last time you met with that elvish diplomat,” Hogun supplied, arching an eyebrow.

Thor looked to Sif. “Loki and I can go to the Bifrost, and the rest of you can work your way toward the palace.”

Sif shook her head. “I’m going with you.”

Loki spoke before Thor could open his mouth. “That’s a good plan. I don’t expect to be trusted alone with any of you, and quite frankly, I’m going to need your help if I’m to close these pathways.” He held Sif’s eyes for a long moment. “I can’t do this without the five of you. I thought I could do everything alone, but I can’t.”

Sif took a deep breath and nodded. “None of us can, Loki. Maybe you’re not Æsir, but you’re still an Asgardian. It’ll take all of us.”

“I don’t expect your forgiveness for what I’ve done. Any of you. Not yet.”

Sif gave him half a smile. “Then earn it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “…Stop making me approve of you.”

Thor arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps we can return to the task at hand?”

Loki grinned slowly. “Yes. Shall we save Asgard then, brother?”

 

_#_

 

Jane shook her head. “He couldn’t take it with him. If something had gone wrong and the Frost Giants had gotten it…”

“So he leaves it here, and we just have to hope that the Jotuns don’t win and make it back to Earth?”

Jane met Erik’s eyes and somehow managed to keep her voice steady. “No. If something goes wrong, and Loki and Thor fail, the pathways to Earth are still closed, and Loki’s the only one who knows how to open them again. He said the Frost Giants don’t know how to operate the Bifrost.”

Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m getting a headache. So, basically, keeping this thing on Earth pretty much makes it impossible for anybody but the good guys to come get it again.”

Erik rubbed his hand across his mouth. “No, it ensures that the Frost Giants can’t get it without assistance.”

Coulson resumed his pacing around the small crater, the clean-up teams moving efficiently behind him to bag the Jotun corpses and load them into refrigerated vans. “Then we need to do something with this cube until they come back for it.” He looked up at last. “Dr. Foster, Dr. Selvig, how would you feel about working with a government grant?”

Erik’s eyes widened slightly. “You want us to study the Tesseract?”

“It’s the easiest way to make sure you don’t publish any findings we can’t alert the general public to.” He smiled. “Like I said, we’re the good guys. Our priority is keeping the planet safe. Having a source of potentially radioactive energy that we don’t understand doesn’t align with that priority.”

“I can’t,” Jane said absently, looking up at the sky.

Darcy blinked several times. “…Wait. The United States government just offered you money, and you’re saying no. I’m lost.”

“I can’t research that cube, Agent Coulson.” She shook her head, turning back to face him. “It isn’t right that it’s on Earth at all. It shouldn’t be. We’re not prepared for this kind of power.”

Erik held out his hands. “Jane, this is the discovery of a lifetime.”

“It isn’t our discovery.”

“But this kind of energy—”

“Is dangerous.”

“Where was this survival instinct when our Asgardian friends were here?”

Jane smiled and shook her head. “I can’t, Erik. If we study this thing, we’re going to want to use it, and you saw what it can do in the hands of someone who knows how to harness that power. You saw what it was doing to his body when he was human. I can’t be responsible for that.”

Darcy stared. “You’re actually saying no to research because it’s the right thing to do.”

Jane took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I am.”

Darcy grinned brightly. “I love you, Jane.”

“That’s a pity, Dr. Foster.” Coulson smiled warmly. “But I can respect that, and can probably still offer you a grant to continue your research on Einstein-Rosen bridges.”

Jane smiled. “So I can give that info to the government? Thanks, but no thanks.” She glanced up again. "I don’t want to know what you do with the Tesseract, and I don’t want you to use my research.”

“Fair enough.” Coulson nodded and turned to the group of agents in radiation suits. “Get this thing contained. I need to contact Director Fury.”

Darcy wrapped her arms around Jane’s waist and hugged her tightly. “He’ll be back.”

“I hope so.”

 

_#_

 

“They knew we’d come here,” Sif murmured, jaw set so tightly that it trembled. Thor rested his hand on her shoulder as they looked at Heimdall, frozen solid with his sword mid-swing.

“We’ll stop them, and we’ll rescue Heimdall.” He glanced at Loki. “This can be reversed, can’t it?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Loki said, clenching his fists at his sides. When he opened his hands, green flames danced in his palms. “If you two would be so kind…”

“With pleasure,” Sif snarled, swinging her sword in one hand and tightening her grip on her shield with the other. Thor stood and hurled Mjolnir at the cluster of Frost Giants pacing in front of the observatory as Sif charged them with a fierce cry. She bashed one of them in the face with her shield as she drove her sword deep into the gut of another until it protruded from his back. Thor caught Mjolnir again and swung in a wide arc, catching one of the Jotuns rushing at them under the jaw and sending him flying over the edge of the Bifrost.

Loki concentrated on the flames in his hands until they glowed blue, his heart sinking to the soles of his boots as he saw his hands changing color to match. He knew his eyes glowed red as he folded space to teleport him to Heimdall’s side and gripped the icy figure, the flames spreading to engulf him. Loki gritted his teeth as he struggled to control the heat, to keep it within the ice without burning the Gatekeeper. Was this Jotun magic as well, that he stood before a frozen Heimdall looking like the same monsters who had frozen him there in the first place, that he used a wickedly controlled heat more precise than any he’d commanded before to undo what the Frost Giants had done?

The ice creaked and groaned, cracks spreading in delicate spiderwebs as something in the golden eyes changed. Loki stared at Heimdall, his hands tightening on the ice and forcing more warmth into it even as Heimdall began to struggle within it. Without warning, the ice shattered, and Loki stumbled backward as Heimdall’s voice rang out in a vicious battle cry, the great longsword swinging hard and fast to cleave one of the Frost Giants in two. Loki closed his eyes and shuddered at the unfamiliar sensation of ice squirming under his skin, begging himself silently to return to what he was, to be something other than the enemy.

When he opened them again, the Frost Giants laid slain on the ground around them, and he got shakily to his feet as Heimdall turned to him. “There is another enemy within Asgard,” the booming voice said as Sif’s fingers tightened around his arm.

“Who, brother?”

“The dragon Fáfnir, brother of Ótr and Regin.”

Loki’s eyes widened. “No. No, he can’t be here. How did he arrive from Svartalfheim?”

“He came with the Frost Giants using dark magic.”

Sif shuddered. “This is the dwarven prince who slew his father the king for the Andvaranaut ring?”

Loki nodded. “The ring that I stole from Andvari, that could turn metal into gold, to ransom us from King Hreidmar. Andvari had cursed it, so when Fáfnir slew his father for the ring, it turned him into the dragon.”

“He used the ring’s promise to sway the Frost Giants,” Heimdall said, watching Loki carefully. “He seeks vengeance on the Allfather just as Laufey did. The Frost Giants found their way to Svartalfheim and brought him into Asgard, sacrificing no less than twenty of their number to do so.”

“Killed in the Nothingness to let a dragon into the realm.” Loki shivered. “With Regin’s help, wasn’t it? Father brought Regin to Asgard to protect him from Fáfnir, but he betrayed us. He was never in any danger from his brother.”

Thor raised an eyebrow. “So the dwarven blacksmith prince helped the Frost Giants bring a poison-spitting dragon into Asgard.” He drew a deep breath. “This is a bit more complicated than we thought. We need to move quickly.”  


_#_

 

Hogun and Volstagg met each others’ eyes from either side of the guard posts as Fandral strolled toward the main gates with a wide smile. Two Frost Giants were hidden in the shadows, ice spears growing over their hands, and Fandral let out a shrill whistle. “Ho, there, lads! I seem to have gotten locked outside, care to open up and let me in?” The Frost Giants stepped out of the shadows with narrowed eyes, and Fandral raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you’re not supposed to be here, are you? Well, this is embarrassing, isn’t it? You seem to have me outnumbered.” He drew his rapier with a slow smile. “That’s going to make it even worse for you when I send you running home in tears. Poor fellows.”

“I’m going to enjoy this, little Æsir.”

Fandral’s grin widened. “Trust me. You won’t.” With a quick flick of his wrist, Fandral slashed at one of the ice spears. The second Frost Giant rushed toward Fandral, only to stumble as Hogun’s mace connected hard with the back of his head, and Volstagg swung the flat of his battle axe against his face. He crumpled with a gurgled cry as blood streamed from his nose, and Fandral swung under the first Frost Giant’s arm and planted his boot against his backside, kicking him forward. He rested the tip of his rapier against the back of the Frost Giant’s neck. “Now then, we’ve got that all settled, perhaps you’d care to tell us where the rest of your fellows are, you naughty things, and we’ll send you all back to Jotunheim before this gets any uglier.” The ground shook, and Fandral rolled his eyes up. A serpentine dragon crawled along the top of the guard tower, its scales glinting a dull grey in the moonlight as black talons the side of his forearm dug into the stone. Fáfnir opened his jaws and bellowed, saliva tinted yellow with poison dripping from the curved fangs. A reddish gold ring encircled one of the long toes. Volstagg and Hogun tightened their grips on their weapons, and Fandral swallowed. “Well, this isn’t good.”

_#_

 

Thor, Loki, and Sif skidded to a halt at the sound, eyes fixed on the beast as it leaped from the top of the guard tower onto the stone behind the Warriors Three. Loki moved without thinking, bending space to appear below the dragon’s chin with a knife in each hand. He drove the blades upward and cried out as the yellow poison dripped onto his arms. Fáfnir shook his great head, and Loki teleported again, slashing at the slightly softer underbelly. He couldn’t hear the battle raging around him as Mjolnir slammed into the side of the dragon’s head, as sword and rapier stabbed while battle axe slashed and mace bludgeoned against the powerful scales. A powerful wind had begun to howl around them, sweeping every sound away as it raged. Loki could feel himself laughing in spite of the searing burn of the poison as it began to melt his armor. Only one being in the Nine Realms could spin the clouds themselves.

His mother was alive, and she was angry.

Loki dove for one of the flailing talons and hacked at it with both knives, blackened blood spurting from the wounds as he drove the blades down over and over, clinging to Fáfnir’s claw with his entire body. Andvaranaut, the cursed red gold ring of Svartalfheim, continued to glimmer despite being coated in the dragon’s blood and bits of tattered flesh. Frigga’s clouds whipped across Fáfnir’s vision, obscuring Loki even as the great fangs snapped for him. Golden blasts of energy signaled that Frigga did not work alone; the Allfather shot powerful magic through the spear Gungnir to knock the gaping jaws away each time they neared Loki.

Fáfnir kicked his leg out, and Loki flew into the side of the guard tower with a sickening crack. He crumpled on the stone and groaned, every bone aching as he moved. He hadn’t made it to his feet before Frigga and Odin were beside him, Odin firing energy blasts to keep the dragon at bay while Frigga threw her arms around Loki, supporting his weight even as she clung to him. “My son,” she murmured over and over, and Loki buried his face against her golden hair as tears sprang to his eyes.

“The pathways in the Nothingness are closed,” he managed, voice thick. “Collapsed. I destroyed them.”

“The Frost Giants in Gladsheim are dead,” she said, gripping the back of his neck. “Your father woke as soon as they breached the hall.”

Loki pulled back and met her eyes. “Mother, I–”

She placed a hand on each cheek and held his face still, silencing him. “Loki, we need to stop this. If Fáfnir spreads his poison into the waters, it could wither all of Asgard.”

“Taking the ring might destroy his dragon form,” he said, nodding.

“We will distract him.”

Odin clasped Loki’s arm as he moved forward, the dragon preoccupied with Mjolnir knocking one of his fangs loose. They stared at each other for a long moment, and Loki nodded. “At any cost, father,” he said quietly, startled when Odin’s eye shimmered with moisture. “For Asgard.” Before Odin could say anything, Loki swallowed and turned back to Frigga. “I love you, mother.” He folded space again and landed on top of Fáfnir’s still bleeding claw. The blasts from Gungnir and the howling clouds roared almost loud enough to drown out Fáfnir’s scream as Loki hacked at the remaining bits of flesh and bone holding the talon in place, and the ring clattered to the stone as it was severed at last.

Fáfnir’s howls rose in pitch as the dragon’s form seemed to twitch and bubble under the skin, shrinking as the scales loosened and rained down on top of Loki. Snatching the ring, he flicked it toward Gladsheim’s gate and shuddered as the poison continued to eat through his armor. He closed his eyes and began to regulate his breathing, weaving a spell to mend the armor and ease the poison into another fold of space he could then collapse in on itself to destroy the corrosive liquid. In, count of seven, out, count of—

The dragon thrashed and whipped its tail toward Loki, catching him in the chest and sending him flying toward the Bifrost bridge. The poison was soaring through the air in tiny yellow droplets, hissing as it was caught up in Frigga’s wind and sailing into the waters crashing against the great rock Gladsheim was built upon. He heard Thor’s bellow and Sif’s startled cry as the poison hit them, heard Fandral and Volstagg shouting and even Hogun’s raised voice. Odin and Frigga’s voices were muffled as they withstood the poison as best they could, joining their magic to try to collect the poison. Loki stared at the flailing dragon while he seemed to melt into himself, saw the corrosion of the stone and metal beneath him. “Forgive me, Jane, I may be a bit later than expected,” he whispered as he flung himself toward the dragon, opening another pocket of space as soon as he collided with the shifting, melting body. He dragged Fáfnir into the Nothingness, but the poison burned into him again, and instead of detaching from the writhing mess, Loki was flung into the coldness of space along with the dying creature.

_#_

 

Only two days had passed, but Thor couldn’t stop shivering, even when Sif wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin on his shoulder. Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg refused to leave his side, all of them slowly healing the burns from the dragon’s poison without complaint. Odin oversaw the rebuilding of that which the dragon and the Frost Giants had destroyed, and Frigga sat at her spinning wheel with the air swirling around her for hours as she searched. They all refused to speak of it, of the horrible reality of what had happened to Loki, and the terrible thoughts of what could be happening to him now. Frigga searched, Odin rebuilt, and Thor shivered while his friends made no mention of the fact that when he fought back his tears, they silently wept with him.

A funerary feast had been held, the long table marked with horned golden decorations, and a long golden boat filled with ever-burning candles suspended above them all. None of them had spoken the words that Loki might be dead, everyone down to the newest member of the kitchen staff wise enough to know that as they mourned, they would not give in to that despairing possibility. Loki could still live, though if he was still trapped within the Nothingness, death might have been a mercy.

“We had to tell her,” Thor said at last, and Sif’s arms tightened around him as his friends turned to face him. Thor’s voice was flat and dull, and tears spilled over his cheeks.

“It might have been kinder to have omitted the details,” Fandral said quietly, voice thick. “To just have told her that he died.”

Sif shook her head. “No. She deserved the truth.”

Fandral rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Loki lived in lies. Why couldn’t we lie about this?”

“Because Loki told her the truth,” Thor said softly, rubbing his hands over Sif’s arms. “We could do no less.”

Sif gave Fandral a small smile. “And because she still hopes. She still looks to the stars, just as the queen does.”

Volstagg nodded. “We all need to hope. Loki’s resourceful. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I agree.” Thor took a deep breath and stood, detangling himself from Sif’s embrace. “We need to strengthen our alliances with the realms, as father said, particularly Midgard now that the Tesseract is there.”

“And for Jane,” Sif said, resting her elbows on her knees. “She is a brilliant mind, and without her aid, Loki may not have ever found it and harnessed its power, let alone closed the pathways and sealed off the realms again. Jane Foster is a remarkable woman, and a friend to us all.”

Thor nodded and moved quietly to the window, peering up at the sky. The twin moons were full and heavy, and he wondered if Loki could see the stars, wherever he was.

_#_

 

  
The moon was full on Earth.

“Jane, you need to eat something.”

She shook her head, wiping the heel of her hand under her eye and twisting a knob on the telescope to bring a cluster of stars into focus. “I’m fine, Darcy.”

“Woman, you haven’t eaten since yesterday.” Darcy shuffled outside with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She shoved a protein bar at Jane, who pressed her lips together.

“I have to find him.”

“You’re not gonna find him if you pass out.”

“I can’t eat this.”

“…Oh. Right. Bad choice.” She tugged the blanket more tightly around her. “He’s gotta be out there somewhere.”

“They said Heimdall’s looking for him.”

“So don’t you think you could leave it up to Eagle Eye for a little while and sleep?”

Jane straightened and blew a stray hair out of her face. “I can’t, Darcy. He’s out there somewhere, I can’t just…”

Darcy’s arms were suddenly around her, and then the blanket was draped over her shoulders. “Come in when you’re ready, okay? I’m gonna order some pizza, and at least promise you’ll eat a slice.”

“Fine, fine, I promise.” Jane held onto the blanket and peered up at the sky, her gut twisting. “Where _are_ you?”

_#_

 

  
The Nothingness had been a sweet blessing compared to this. He couldn’t stop moving, caught up in the endlessness of the universe beyond Yggdrasil, unable to change his direction, or stop himself from the endless spinning. The silence was deafening, the cold almost unbearable, and he had no idea how he was still alive when he could barely breathe. Whatever magic kept him going had been a mystery until he’d looked down at his hand and seen Andvaranaut glimmering on his finger. The ring had chosen him, for in a roundabout way he was the originator of the curse it carried, and it had kept him alive. It had kept him breathing when there was no air, had kept him awake when he would have slipped into oblivion. His mind spun just as his body did, flashing on Odin speaking the name Laufeyson, then his mother’s image while he was imprisoned by S.H.I.E.L.D., then Thor screaming as the poison hit him, and always returning to Jane’s bleeding lip. So many times he had failed them, so many times…

Something slithered around his arm and entwined with his fingers. What fresh torment was this illusion? He shook his hand, but something else twisted around his ankle and slid up his leg. The horrible spinning stopped, and he was moving in a _direction_ at last, being pulled toward something. He looked down at his limbs and saw slender, metallic tendrils tightening around him and drawing him closer. Surely he was hallucinating. Surely…

Loki stared into glowing eyes set deep into a face the color of young wine, gleaming gold adorning a body wider and thicker than Thor’s, and began to tremble. “Asgardian,” a voice crooned, and Loki couldn’t stop the shivering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading Inversion, the first installment of the Inversionverse series. A short story will be coming soon as a prelude to the next chaptered work to tie up everything that's happened here and set up the coming arcs.


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